Russian colonel who took part in Donbas war arrested in Ukraine
The State Border Guard Service (SBGS) of Ukraine arrested Russian Colonel Valery Gratov, whom Russian intelligence planned to make the “deputy minister of state security of Transnistria”.
This was reported on July 9 by Oleh Slobodyan, assistant to the head of the SBGS. According to him, the arrest took place early in June.
“The Ukrainian citizen Valery Georgievich Voytenko, born in 1954, arrived to exit Ukraine, and showed general civil control a Ukrainian citizen’s passport. He presented a telegram from Transnistria about his mother’s serious health condition, but got mixed up with the details of his passport. Officers of the quick response division of the SBGS arrived to question the citizen in detail at the border crossing point,” Slobodyan reported.
Among the man’s personal items, a cellphone with photographs from separatist rallies was discovered, as well as money and bus tickets.
“In his jacket they found an inside pocket containing a sheet of paper with the locations and phone numbers of Transnistrian officials and people from Russia, an order of Krasnaya Zvezda, a smartphone, and flash drives of information. On these they found photographs of the detainee with the terrorists ‘Motorola’, ‘Givi’, (Aleksandr) Zakharchenko; a video of the bombardment of Ukrainian territory; ‘DPR’ and ‘LPR’ propaganda materials, a photo with military activity locations near Debaltseve, the Donetsk airport, Horlivka, near Snizhne and Ilovaisk,” Slobodyan stated.
They also discovered service documentation with the detainee’s signature, methodical material on acts of reconnaissance and sabotage, and so on.
“They were able to establish the real identity of the detainee: he proved to be Russian Colonel Gratov Valery, born in 1952, whom the Russian intelligence services planned to make the ‘deputy minister of state security of Transnistria’. The detainee was handed over to SBU officers,” the report states.
As noted by military reporter Andriy Tsaplienko, the arrested Russian colonel is a “former head of the personal protection of Igor Smirnov, president of unrecognized Transnistria, and an active instructor of Donbas militants, a close friend of Givi and Motorola (killed separatists commanders).”
“Counter intelligence officers have known for a long time that behind the name ‘Valeriy Voytenko’ lay a certain ‘Sanych’, known in Moscow as airborne forces Colonel Valery Gratov. Ukrainian counter intelligence received information on the Russian FSB’s intention to appoint their own person as the ‘minister of state security of Transnistria’. The primary criterion was that he had to be a regular Russian soldier with combat experience, in the Donbas, on the side of the militants. And such a person was found quite quickly,” Tsaplienko observed.
According to him, Gratov had been in the Donbas since 2014, officially heading the “Donbas Paratrooper Union”.
“From 29.08.2014 to the present, Valery Alexandrovich Gratov has been located in the combat zone in the Luhansk People’s Republic and in the Donetsk People’s Republic. He was recognized for completing combat missions… Participation in military action: Luhansk, Horlivka, Makiivka, Donetsk, Snizhne, Ilovaisk, Yenakiieve, Vuhlehirsk, Debaltseve,” Tsaplienko reported, quoting a letter from the commander of one of the illegal armed groups to the Russian State Duma.