By pointing Russian missiles, military engineers, including promising programmers, are becoming key anonymous actors in allowing Putin to wage aggressive war. But investigators managed to find out the names of these killers remotely.

Russia strikes with “high-precision” missiles on residential areas and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. Such attacks by the invaders, in particular, took place on October 10, when 20 civilians were killed and 108 wounded ; the next day, about 30 more rocket attacks were carried out on Ukrainian cities; the arrival of “Caliber” in Vinnitsa on July 14 claimed the lives of 27 civilians; On June 26, several guided missiles hit a residential area in Kyiv.

Investigative journalists The lnsider , Bellingcat and Der Spiegel were able to find out who was aiming these missiles at civilian targets. We are talking about a secret unit within the Main Computing Center (MCC) of the Russian Armed Forces, which determines flight missions for high-precision missiles.

Investigators, by detailing calls comparable to the shelling of Ukraine, identified 30 Russian military engineers, most of them young men and women with a background in information technology and even in the development of computer games. Journalists established the names and positions of these war criminals.

Missile gunners from the Main Computing Center : who are they

Journalists note that there is hardly any information about the MCC in open sources. They were able to find out that all the rocket men who joined the Main Computing Center were registered as living and working at 19 Znamenka Street in Moscow, the official address of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.

The functions of the MCC in military publications are described as “providing IT services” and “automating the RF Armed Forces.” Among its employees, as the investigators found out, there are not only the military, but also people with civilian work experience as corporate IT specialists or even game designers.

The journalists studied the metadata of telephone conversations of the head of the center, Major General Robert Baranov. And it turned out that every time before the launches of cruise missiles in the period from February 24 to the end of April 2022, he received a call from one specific number, and he belongs to Colonel Igor Bagnyuk, registered at the same address as other established officers of the MCC – on Znamenka, 19. Then the metadata of Bagnyuk’s calls were studied – it turned out that he intensively communicated with more than 20 military engineers and IT specialists from the MCC. And so the team of 33 military engineers reporting to Colonel Bagnyuk was reconstructed by The lnsider , Bellingcat and Der Spiegel researchers.

“In addition, by analyzing this data, we were able to link many individual cruise missile strikes to specific MCC units and found a correlation between the type of missiles and specific MCC personnel,” the journalists note.

As you can see, the MCC division identified by the researchers consists of three teams, each of which programs the flight trajectories of one specific type of high-precision missiles:

• ZM-14 (“Caliber”, sea-based) – Major Ivan Popov, Major Matvey Lyubavin, Lieutenant Ekaterina Chugunova, Captain Sergei Ilyin, Captain Yuri Nikonov, Senior Lieutenant Dmitry Tikhonov;
• 9M728 (aka R-500, Iskander tactical missile systems (ground-based) – Major Pavel Obukhov, Captain Elvira Obukhova, Major Nikita Poplavsky, Captain Viktor Yaskelainen, Lieutenant Alexander Grigoryan, Lieutenant Vladimir Petrov;
• X-101 (air-based) – Captain Artem Chernov, Captain Alexei Betekhtin, Major Andrei Ivanyutin, Major Nikita Poplavsky.
• And, in fact, the head of the Main Computer Center, General Robert Baranov, Colonel Igor Bagnyuk from the target designation unit, and Lieutenant Colonel Anton Timashinov.

War criminals deny involvement in MCC in phone calls

The lnsider tried to contact the gunmen using the phones from the received billing, they all admitted that these phone numbers belong to them, but categorically denied that they work in the Main Computing Center and have anything to do with the shelling of Ukraine. Ilyin called himself a plumber, Lieutenant Artem Vedenov claims to work on a pig farm, Captain Yuri Nikonov claims to be a bus driver, Major Ivan Popov claims that he is just learning to program in Python, Lieutenant Ekaterina Chugunova says she runs a flower shop .

But when The lnsider journalists showed some of the gunners a photo where they stand in military uniform with the sign of a computer center, this led them to complete confusion.

But one of the engineers agreed to share with the investigators, on condition of anonymity, some contextual information and several photographs of the route-computing block of the MCC, which stands in front of the building of the Russian Ministry of Defense in Moscow.

Biographies of Remote Killers Targeting Ukrainian Civilian Objects with Guided Missiles

Military engineers who program guided missile trajectories have very different backgrounds. These are both professional military and people with civilian professions related to IT.

GVC Commander. Igor Bagnyuk was born in 1982 in Riga, in 2004 he graduated from the Serpukhov branch of the Academy of the Strategic Missile Forces, specializing in information systems for Russian missiles. Bagnyuk served in military unit 29692 (2027th aviation technical warehouse) near Vladimir, until at some point, no later than 2010, he was transferred to Moscow to serve in the Main Computer Center.

The medals in his photo, obtained from one of the employees of the Main Computer Center, show that Bagnyuk was awarded the medal “For participation in hostilities in Syria.” This medal has been awarded to Russian military personnel since 2015 (Russia used guided missiles in Syria more than once, for example, during attacks on Aleppo in 2016).

Bagnyuk is not the only employee of the Main Computer Center who distinguished himself in Syria, the investigators found out. For example, in a photo released by the Kremlin of a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad in Damascus in January 2021 at the Russian military command center in Syria, one can spot Major Andrey Ivanyutin, a member of the MCC unit with whom Bagnyuk actively communicates during a full-scale war.

Investigators have restored the chronology of calls and guidance of missiles in Ukrainian cities

On the eve of the massive missile strike on Ukraine on October 10, Bagnyuk and his subordinates were observed to be on the phone, starting on October 2 and ending on the 9th. On the last date, 11 calls were made to the gunners. What does this indicate? The fact that these strikes were planned for at least a week and could not be the result of the undermining of the Crimean bridge on October 8, 2022.

“On October 9, just before the missile strikes, Bagnyuk called three officers-engineers from the MCC group in succession, each of whom specialized in one of the three types of cruise missiles,” the researchers emphasize.

Bagnyuk called Captain Alexei Mikhailov, then Major Matvey Lyubavin. Moreover, the latter on a stationary work phone after 15:00, and he was at the workplace on Sunday after 15:00.

As the journalists figured out, after an almost two-hour pause at 17:10 Bagnyuk received a phone call from one of the deputy commanders of the Main Computer Center, Colonel Yevgeny Kapshuk. Immediately after talking with his superior, Colonel Bagnyuk called Senior Lieutenant Olga Chesnokova, a member of a subgroup specializing in Kh-101 air-launched cruise missiles. Bagnyuk called Chesnokova twice in a row at 17:16 and 17:17, and then called back his superior Colonel Kapshuk at 17:20.

“Thus, between 15:17 and 17:17, Colonel Bagnyuk contacted officers from each of the units, specializing in three types of missiles that will be launched at targets in Ukraine the next morning,” the investigators stressed.

It turned out that after that Bagnyuk went to his office at 19 Znamenka, at the headquarters of the General Staff. There he was, judging by the metadata, until late in the evening. The last time he called the head of the Main Computer Center, General Baranov, was at 21:15, after which he left for home. Bagnyuk returned to work at 5:30 am on October 10.

Journalists have established a connection between Bagniuk’s calls to his senior leadership with impending large-scale missile attacks on Ukrainian territory. So, Bagnyuk spoke with General Baranov on September 10 at 12:41. Bagnyuk’s last call was made at 9:20 pm that Saturday evening to Captain Aleksei Mikhailov, a cruise missile guidance specialist for the Iskander complex. The next day, September 11, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that over the past 24 hours, the Russian Federation had launched several Iskander missiles at a Ukrainian military base in Donbas. Later that day, another 12 cruise ships over Ukraine, the first known attempt to cause significant damage to Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

In addition, on the night of September 12-13, Bagnyuk’s phone records recorded a new flurry of calls – from Kapshuk’s boss and to his subordinates. The next day, the Russian Defense Ministry published a video recording of the night launch of the Iskander complex cruise missile at the command post of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

“The earliest calls between Bagnyuk and General Baranov, identified by our team, date back to March 13, 2022. They spoke twice that morning between 10:00 and 10:30. Earlier this morning, Russia fired its deadliest salvo since the start of its invasion: 30 rockets Kh-101 and Kalibr killed at least 35 and wounded 134 people at a military training ground near Lviv ,” the investigators note.

(C)UNIAN 2022