After the failed sabotage at Leipzig airport, many media, referring to sources in law enforcement agencies, called the names of some of the perpetrators and reported the likely involvement of the GRU, but could not provide evidence. The Insider was able to find not only documentary evidence that the sabotage was organized by the GRU, but also some previously unknown performers, before that lit up in sabotage in Poland.
On the evening of August 4, a drone carrying a cargo of explosives crashed into the wing of the An-124 Ruslan, parked at Leipzig Airport. The device did not work, and the drone fell to the ground, where a few hours later he was discovered by the bus driver. At that point, the plane was empty, but shortly before the incident it transported ammunition from France through Leipzig. It is possible to imagine what casualties and destruction the explosion would have caused if the sabotage was successful and the plane was actually filled with ammunition.
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said the results of the police investigation and intelligence information indicated Russia’s responsibility for the incident. With reference to the sources in the investigation, the press called the suspects – some Oleg L. and Andrei K., allegedly associated with the GRU, but no details and evidence were given, it was only reported that one of the suspects has Latvian citizenship (this was confirmed by the special services of Latvia). The Insider, however, managed not only to establish the names of the performers, but also to prove the participation of the GRU in the organization of the sabotage.
How the GRU organized (and failed) the sabotage in Leipzig
On the cold January morning of 2026, GRU Colonel Denis Smolyaninov (right in the photo) strolled around Moscow in an interesting company: with a knife throwing coach (and concurrently, judging by the photo, the active parishioner of the Moscow Church of the Nativity of the Virgin in Krylatsky) Vladimir Trofimov (left) and arms dealer Andrei Usach. What exactly discussed this company on that day is unknown, but Usachúv already had something to report to the military intelligence officer.
54-year-old Andrey Usachów began his career with service in VJV, in 2000 for armed robbery of the currency exchange point received 9 years, and having been released, engaged in business on the production of weapons and trade. His company “Arms Chamber” initially developed well and became a supplier of the RosGuard, but in 2023 it was revealed that their complex “Scorcher” turned out to be a cheap Chinese drone SkyfendHunter SHH100, in addition imported to Russia illegally. Usachchev left the company, but the specialists associated with military drones on the road do not fall, and he drew attention to the GRU.
The interest in the drones at Usachiv was not theoretical. According to the data of his billing, available to The Insider, on July 13, 2026, he called his friend from Pskov Olegu Lövushkin. In ordinary life, Läwushkin was known as a biker and a small businessman – he headed a small company that imported tea, coffee and spices. For the GRU, this contact was of particular value, as it also had Latvian citizenship, and therefore the possibility of freely entering the European Union. In addition, he had his own company in Serbia, which gave a good excuse for travel to the region.
As you can see on the basis of booking tickets, two weeks after this conversation, on July 26, Lävushkin bought a ticket to Istanbul, where he took off the next day. From there he went to Berlin, where he rented a car on which he went to Leipzig. And a few hours before the drone attack in Leipzig, on the afternoon of August 4, I bought a return ticket – a flight from Macedonia to Moscow with a transfer in Istanbul.
Lövushkin did not act alone, he had accomplices who became the direct perpetrators of the failed sabotage. And they were familiar with The Insider on another sabotage two years ago.
Belarusian criminals and arson in Leroy Merlin
Investigation discovered on the antenna, which was used to amplify the signal in the control of the drone, traces of a citizen of the Republic of Belarus living in Russia Andrey Karshakova.
As it turned out, for Karshakov it was not the first sabotage: two years earlier he participated in the arson in the Polish city of Lodz. On the night of July 25, 2024, a fire broke out at the Leroy Merlin hypermarket in Lodz — a rack with plant protection products and insecticides was burning. The firefighters coped for an hour, the damage was estimated at 200 thousand zlotys (approximately 45 thousand euros). The likely reason was the violation of storage rules. Then the Polish media did not pay much attention to this incident.
And here the law enforcement agencies drew attention to two suspicious characters who visited Lodz in the days of sabotage. Their personalities The Insider installed thanks to the videos on which they lit up when they removed money from the local ATM. One of them was the above-mentioned Karshakov, and the other was Belarusian Maxim Lapunov (he officially changed his surname, but at the same time used an old passport in the name of Maxim Kolosov).
Flight data show that Lapunov participated in the Leipzig diversion: On July 19, 2026, two weeks before the incident, he flew from St. Petersburg to Ankara, from where he flew to Belgrade on the same day. According to the sources of The Insider in the law enforcement agencies of one of the European countries, Lapunov was highly likely to be in Germany these days.
It cannot be ruled out that other participants were involved in the Leipzig sabotage. Thus, according to the border crossing, Karshakov often moved with three of his accomplices living in Russia by Belarusians: Roman Kovalevsky, standing in Russia registered for robbery and robbery, Vyacheslav Aisin and the former policeman Denis Shulgan. The role of Karshakova’s accomplices in the Leipzig diversion is not yet clear, but it is interesting that Aisin regularly visited Germany, including in Leipzig.
Bandits in the service of the GRU
Denis Smolyaninov was born in 1976 in Chelyabinsk, where he graduated from the Chelyabinsk Higher Military Aviation School of Navigators, after which he served in Smolensk, then upgraded his qualifications at the Academy of the GRU on the street of the People’s Opole in Moscow and moved to St. Petersburg, where he began to work in the 172nd command and intelligence center of the GRU, engaged mainly in the Ukrainian direction.
Even then, he began to hire criminals to carry out tasks abroad. Back in 2023, the Dossier Center spoke about how Smolyaninov recruited those who served for the murder of neo-Nazis for undercover work in Ukraine. Among the criminals recruited by Smolyanin were real stars of the criminal world, such as, for example, the former GRU-shnik Vladimir Borisov named Ensign, who in the 90s in St. Petersburg created the Falcon-95, where he built discipline according to the military model and used the methods of special services (including advanced wiretapping methods and professional makeup for killers, which was prepared by specialists) Despite numerous murders, abductions and raider captures, the leader of the group was able to get away from the serious articles and to get off with a conditional sentence.
In 2014, Borisov, following the general fashion, tried to create his own PMC and, apparently, on this ground came together with Smolyaninov: then the GRU actively worked on the creation of a PMC to cover its activities. But unlike another Pitersky criminal Prigozhina, Borisov did not achieve great success, and in 2017 he was wanted for the raider capture of the state-owned Institute of Architectural and Construction Design. He was hiding in Bulgaria for a while, but in 2021 he was extradited to Russia. He was believed to be in a Russian prison, but according to The Insider, he was soon released, received a new passport and is already actively flying abroad in companies with other criminals.