Investigation: Belarusian KGB Alpha Members Engaged In Political Assassinations
- 13.03.2026, 20:57
They hold senior positions in the Russian Federation's super-secret special forces.
Russian security services have created a new autonomous structure to eliminate political opponents and conduct sabotage abroad - Center 795. An investigation by The Insider provides the details.
After the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian authorities began using sabotage and assassination attempts abroad on a massive and systematic basis. Since the previous intelligence structures, in particular the unit of General Andrey Averyanov (v/h 29155), were seriously compromised after a number of failures and de-anonymization of officers in the world press, there was a need for new resources.
So in December 2022, by decision of the Russian General Staff, Center 795 (v/h 75127) was created. This top-secret and autonomous structure was conceived as a more closed alternative to GRU groups to perform the most critical tasks, including political assassinations and kidnappings, but without the systemic errors and "flagged" personnel of the past.
According to The Insider, by June 2023, the unit was almost fully staffed. Formally, Center 795 reports directly to the Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, but the backbone is made up of people from the FSB Special Forces Center (Alpha and Vympel groups).
The Patriot Park in Kubinka became the base for the center, and financial support was provided by Rostec chief Sergey Chemezov and Kalashnikov co-owner Andrey Bokarev. This made it possible to pay officers very high salaries. So the head of the department receives about $ 5400 a month only from "Kalashnikov", and there is also a salary from the Ministry of Defense. Salaries of law enforcers in Belarus are many times less.
The structure of Center 795 is impressive in its scale. It has about 500 officers, who are divided into three departments: intelligence, assault and combat support.
The intelligence department includes nine departments: from monitoring social networks and interception of satellite communications to agent networks abroad (12th department) and sniper groups (19th department), designed specifically for targeted liquidations. The Assault Directorate consists of autonomous strike groups that are unaware of each other's existence, which guarantees the survivability of the entire network in the event of a single cell failure. The third directorate provides combat support and has the latest T-90A tanks and Smerch rocket systems.
A special place in the leadership of this secret structure is occupied by natives of Belarus. The chief of staff of Center 795, Dmitry Drozdov, and the head of the intelligence department, Sergei Radkevich, are veterans of the Alfa group of the KGB of Belarus.
Their recruitment by the Russian intelligence service, investigators believe, was a deliberate move: officers from an allied country have no Russian institutional background, which makes it easier for them to avoid the attention of foreign counterintelligence.
The two were brought into the unit's structure through civilian positions at Kalashnikov JSC, which helped conceal their ties to the Russian military and official intelligence services. Radkevich, along with his deputy Alexei Ilyushin, oversees the most closed departments that deal with agent networks abroad.
How Google Translate burned an agent
According to investigators, despite its high level of secrecy and technical equipment, the unit faced a high-profile failure of one of its key performers, 42-year-old Denis Alimov.
His career began in the Stavropol OMON and continued in the Moscow-based Alfa of the FSB. Alimov had connections at the highest levels, including personally with Ramzan Kadyrov, whom he helped search for his missing nephew in 2023. As part of Center 795, Alimov was involved in the "Chechen direction." One of his assignments was to kidnap critics of the regime in Europe.
Alimov needed an agent to carry out operations in the West. He became Darko Durovich, who lived in the United States. In October 2024, in a restaurant near Lubyanka, Alimov handed him a $60,000 advance and promised him $1.5 million for each successfully "deported" target. The main victims were to be family members of Chechen emigrant Akhmed Zakaev, who lives in Britain.
The operation failed, however. The officer, Denis Alimov, spoke only Russian. His main agent, Darko Durovic, spoke Serbo-Croatian and English. To transmit operational instructions and receive reports, they used the online service Google Translate.
Since the service belongs to an American company, the FBI was granted access to all the logs of correspondence by a court order. U.S. intelligence agencies watched in real time as Durovich tracked down a target in a "white villa by the sea" in Europe and searched the Internet for Glock pistols.
Denis Alimov was detained on February 24 at the airport in Bogota, Colombia. He arrived there on a Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul using a standard operational cover - the image of a tourist with a hotel reservation in Cartagena. The detention was the result of joint work by Interpol and U.S. intelligence agencies. Alimov has been charged with conspiracy to murder and supporting terrorism and faces life in prison in the United States.
According to The Insider, Center 795 has already organized a number of assassination attempts and sabotage attacks that are still under investigation. The publication promises to reveal more about them later. However, already the very exposure of the structure and activities of this unit creates serious problems for the Russian security services, especially in connection with the first arrest of its employee. In fact, such a failure puts an end to the structure's activities.