08.01.2026

The Ukrainian hacker group 256 Cyber ​​Assault Division,  in cooperation with the international intelligence community InformNapalm, conducted another CYBINT operation, during which intelligence data important for the Defense Forces of Ukraine was obtained.

The main block of the public part of this research is the exposure of facts about the supply chains of smuggled weapons from the combat zone to the temporarily occupied Crimea. In turn, the peninsula serves as a hub for the further transportation of weapons to the “black markets” in the regions of Russia, as well as to the countries of Europe, West Asia and Africa by involving tankers of the Russian “shadow fleet”. 

During the operation, the accounts of Russian officers were hacked, including Major Yevgeny Dmitriev, a platoon commander of the Russian assault company “Storm V” of the 291st Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment (42nd MSD, 58th Combined Arms Army), which is currently operating in the Zaporizhia direction.

Facts of cooperation between Russian officers and representatives of Kadyrov’s Vostok-Akhmat battalion regarding the illegal sale of weapons were exposed.

In addition, after hacking the accounts of Russian officers, Ukrainian hackers implemented a successful operation with elements of social engineering. On behalf of a Russian major, they misled the administrators of the Z-public of the millionaire “Two Majors” and forced them to transfer funds from the current collection of the 291st regiment of the Russian Armed Forces to the needs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ Special Operations Command (video report at the end of the publication).

Read more about all these facts later in the article.

Foreword. The “Black Market” of Weapons from the So-Called “SVO”

The “black market” in weapons is a completely typical phenomenon for Russia, which has constantly waged local wars of aggression throughout its recent history. And the full-scale invasion of Ukraine has only increased its scale and the number of players. The Global Organized Crime Index shows that corrupt officials in Russian law enforcement agencies facilitate the movement of smuggled weapons both within the country and to countries in Europe, Western Asia, and Africa. 

Experts note that over the almost four years of war, occupied Crimea has come to the fore as the main and relatively safe transit hub for weapons from the front line.

At one time, after the terrorist attack on March 22, 2024 at Crocus City Hall in the Moscow region, even the Russian Z-channel Grey Zone, associated with the Wagner PMC, hinted at the participation of Kadyrov’s Akhmat in organizing an uncontrolled flow of weapons from the front ( post archive ). They said that military counterintelligence (the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation), although aware of the situation, could not do anything due to the influence and patronage of Ramzan Kadyrov. 

Weapons smuggling routes. Intelligence data

Data obtained during CYBINT operations indicate that in the Zaporizhia and Kherson directions of the temporarily occupied territories, the Russian military has established a channel for supplying weapons from the front to the temporarily occupied Crimea. This is a stable “work schedule” of specific shifts of the Russian Guard at checkpoints on the R-280 highway in the Berdyansk – Melitopol – Chongar – Simferopol sections , who pass suspicious cargo either without inspection at all (a service for regular and verified customers), or for a fee turn a blind eye to the inconsistency of documents with what is actually being transported.

The coordinators of these weapons schemes are officers of the 46th Special Operations Brigade, which is 99% composed of representatives from Chechnya and Dagestan. This main base of Caucasians is located in Askania Novaya and nearby settlements in the Kherson region, but the leadership is also dispersed in Ilyinka, Novotroitsky, Chaplyntsa, and Kalanchak.

Why “Akhmat” destroyed “Espanyol”

In the context of the introductory part, it is worth mentioning that for a certain period, Kadyrov’s supporters had competitors in the illegal arms trafficking market – the Russian group “Espanyola”, which consisted of football ultras and right-wing radicals. In December 2025, the founder and leader of the group, Stanislav Orlov, with the call sign “Ispanets”, was shot dead at his dacha in the “Flotske” garden society in Sevastopol. According to the main version, the cause was conflicts with other criminal groups and security forces in using logistical routes through the occupied Crimea to remove weapons from the combat zone. In particular, “Espanyola” covered itself with the status of “humanitarian” and volunteer columns in order to avoid thorough checks at checkpoints.

Major Dmitriev – a source for intelligence

One of the Russian officers whose example we will use to illustrate this study, and who was actively involved in arms smuggling schemes in collaboration with Kadyrov’s supporters, is Major Dmitriev Yevgeny Nikolayevich . He served as a platoon commander of the “Storm V” assault company of the 291st Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment of the 42nd Motorized Rifle Division, 58th Combined Arms Army, which is conducting combat operations in the Zaporizhia direction.

Dmitriev was born on December 26, 1983 in the village of Krasnogvardiyskoye, Stavropol Territory. He last visited his parents in June 2025 during his vacation. His own home is registered in Stavropol at 77 Dovatortsev St., building 1, apt. 29. His personal military ID number is X-648025 . He uses the phone numbers +7(962)4347515, +7(961)4957515 and +7(949)9866262. E-mail: dmitriev_ev83@bk.ru .

Yevgeny Dmitriev ended up in the so-called “SVO” after a strict regime colony , where the Vladikavkaz court sent him in August 2023 for selling narcotics on a large scale. 

The major not only sold, but also tried psychostimulants on himself. Because of this, according to the expert opinion in the case, he was diagnosed with mental and behavioral disorders.  For one “bookmark” with drugs, he was paid 1,000 rubles. These data are a vivid prelude to arms smuggling, which he began to engage in after signing a contract and being sent to a combat zone. 

In order not to serve time in prison, Dmitriev signed a two-year contract for the so-called “SVO” from 05/31/2024 to 05/30/2026 as a platoon commander of the “Storm V” penal assault company. 

As can be seen from the excerpt, initially the Stavropol military commissariat incorrectly indicated his rank as “senior lieutenant”, but later the error was corrected, and extracts from orders from 2017 were found. 

Officer Dmitriev’s ID.

Examples of debt and one of Dmitriev’s last enforcement proceedings.

Dmitriev is not officially married, but he provides for two young children. Thanks to Dmitriev’s contract for the aggressive war against Ukraine, his son Zakhar, born in 2010, has already received benefits when entering an educational institution. 

Information about family composition from Dmitriev’s questionnaire

Certificate for son Zakhar about entrance benefits 

Military realities around the 291st Regiment and internal videos of Major Dmitriev

According to CYBINT intercepts, it is known that the 291st Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment (MRR) of the Russian Armed Forces, which includes Dmitriev’s assault company, is fighting mainly in the Zaporizhia direction – in the area of ​​Orekhov, Tokmak, and Robotyne – as part of the 42nd Guards Motorized Rifle Division of the 58th Army of the Dnepr Group.

In 2023-2024, the regiment was one of the main units in the battles around Robotyne. Prolonged head-on clashes and constant changes in control of positions actually “erased” its personnel on several occasions. Currently, the 291st regiment, together with other units of the 58th Army, continues combat operations in the Orikhiv direction. During 2025, its activity was mostly limited to holding positions and local assaults, which were accompanied by significant irreversible and sanitary losses, but without significant changes to the front line. 

The permanent deployment point of the regiment (military unit 43057) is located in the city of Vladikavkaz, Republic of North Ossetia-Alania, and the temporary one is in the village of Dunaivka, Priazovsky district, Zaporizhia region.

From intercepted correspondence, it is known that the personnel repeatedly complained about the regiment commander, Lieutenant Colonel Anton Robertovich Godin (born in 1987), as a corrupt person and a “cynical butcher” who did not take into account losses. In conditions of chronic personnel shortage and lack of attack aircraft, this resulted in regular local attacks without real tactical meaning, but with predictably high losses.

As Dmitriev says in correspondence with a comrade, this is an example of a typical commander, whose key feature is the fear of responsibility to higher authorities, shifting the blame onto subordinates, and the desire to “close the accounts” at any cost. 

The assessment of the level of training of the personnel of the “V” unit, led by Major Dmitriev, after training at one of the training grounds is indicative. The commission officially recognized the unit as unsuitable for performing special tasks for assault companies.  

However, for the leadership of the 291st Infantry Regiment, this conclusion had no meaning: immediately after the exercises, the soldiers were sent on an assault, once again showing that for the Russian command, people are just expendable material. 

As a platoon commander, Dmitriev doesn’t pay much attention to personnel losses and faithfully carries out orders. However, sometimes even he doesn’t hide his surprise at the cruelty of his own military superiors.

In one of the videos, addressed to his acquaintance from the Akhmat-Vostok battalion, Dmitriev said that the situation was so critical that one of the soldiers was sent into the assault on a motorcycle with an Ilizarov apparatus, a medical device used after severe fractures when plaster or plates are no longer effective.

In addition to many of his own videos, Dmitriev also stores a chronicle of interrogations of captured Russian soldiers in the cloud on his server. Among them is a recording with Mikhail Nikolayenko, presumably his acquaintance. In the video, the prisoner calmly tells: during the advance to the trench, out of twelve soldiers in the landing, only two survived. The rest died not from Ukrainian fire, but under fire from their own Russians – those who shot them in the back, leaving no chance of escape.

So how does the arms smuggling scheme work? Among Russian officers who command assault units on the front line, it is common practice to overestimate the losses of assault rifles during assaults, or even send fighters to assault without their regular weapons. Fighters are usually told to “capture their weapons in battle.” And the assault rifle that remains in position is written off according to the scheme. This way, they get additional weapons that can later be sold. Similar Russian bare-handed attacks were once reported in the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Another, no less typical option is the so-called “captured” weapons or ammunition found in areas of active fighting, which are simply not reported. Most often, these are the property of adjacent units. 

Recent interceptions by the Ukrainian Defense Forces in the area of ​​responsibility of the Russian 291st Regiment also confirmed that sending troops on an assault with minimal or no ammunition has long become the norm there. 

It is difficult to describe in detail the personal combat experience of Major Dmitriev as a platoon commander. Of the hundreds of his personal photos, there is not a single one from combat positions, but dozens of shots from the rear, in a dugout, or even in a toilet, where he poses in a new bulletproof vest. War exists for him as a backdrop for selfies, and not as a risk shared with his subordinates who are “fighting” in assaults. Although it is worth noting that once he did receive a minor wound and ended up in the hospital.

“Akhmat-Vostok” and the road to Crimea

From the intercepted correspondence, it is unclear where exactly Dmitriev first met his Kadyrov associates: in prison, at a birthday party, at headquarters, during regular trips to the bathhouse with prostitutes, or while receiving treatment at the 1472nd Naval Hospital in Sevastopol. But already in the summer of 2024, Major Dmitriev began active cooperation with Kadyrov’s associates from the Akhmat-Vostok battalion.

In addition to the financial component, Dmitriev was tempted by security guarantees, because thanks to corrupt connections, Kadyrov’s followers always had the opportunity to warn each other and people in the scheme about surprise checks by counterintelligence, the FSB, or the Investigative Committee, which regularly work in their area of ​​responsibility and, under the guise of buyers, look for people willing to sell weapons. 

Similarly, Kadyrov’s supporters and their Russian military officers are not afraid of increased inspections of military transport at the administrative border of the temporarily occupied Kherson region and Crimea, because the “green corridor” was agreed upon in advance.

Weapons smuggling schemes: “We can even smuggle a nuclear weapon if necessary”

According to the correspondence, Major Yevgeny Dmitriev’s main contact for selling weapons is Nazib Radzhabov from the Vostok-Akhmat battalion, which is also subordinate to the 291st regiment and is located in the same area in the Orekhov area.

It is noteworthy that in 2024, the commander of Vostok-Akhmat Vakha “Askhab” Khambulatov (Kadyrov’s former bodyguard) was involved in an incident at the entrance to temporarily occupied Melitopol, when Kadyrov’s supporters brazenly beat representatives of the military police at a checkpoint and threatened them with weapons. It is possible that such brazen behavior, along with intimidation of representatives of the military police, serves as a means of avoiding checks of vehicles carrying illegal weapons. 

Below is an example of correspondence between Nazir and Major Dmitriev. Weapons were taken from Dmitriev either by Nazir himself or by his trusted people, for example, the commander of the Vostok-Akhmat reconnaissance platoon, Ali “Nokhcho” Osmaev.

Nazir Radzhabov’s self-confident quote is especially interesting : “…We can at least transport a nuclear weapon, if necessary.”

These and similar correspondences continued for a year. During this time, Major Dmitriev noticeably improved his financial situation, bought expensive things and clothes.  During the entire period of the “partnership” with Nazir, the transfer of weapons had to be paused only a few times – precisely because of information about increased control and inspections by the FSB, which “their people” in the structure warned about. 

The intense fighting in the area significantly facilitated the schemes for decommissioning weapons. For example, on 06/11/2024, Dmitriev received ten AK-12s with ammunition for the unit, and on 06/25/2024, he handed over three AK-12s and one captured AK-74, having six “decommissioned” assault rifles for sale. At the same time, he did not forget to share with the acting head of the RAO ( missile and artillery armament ) service, D. Tymoshyn, who received $200 for each “decommissioned” assault rifle, and the warehouse manager, D. Rovensky, who had $50 for each weapon. 

https://informnapalm.org/ua/vostok-ahmat-291-polk-kontrabanda