An investigative group opposed to the Putin regime claims the Moscow city authority accidentally uploaded a sensitive document listing “special” buildings in the area, inadvertently revealing the locations of military intelligence operatives, safehouses, and undercover buildings.
A 434-page document of “special list” addresses across Russia, meaning they should continue to receive electricity even during power cuts, has revealed the locations of large numbers of sensitive state employees, spies, and hidden government buildings, the Dossier Centre investigative group claims. Among those ‘doxed’ by their own government in the middle of a war are officers of the army intelligence branch GRU (Main Intelligence Directorate), locations of offices of KGB successor the FSB (Federal Security Service), and even newly built border posts near Ukraine, they say.
The document appears to have now been taken down from the website of Moscow City Hall.
As noted in a report of Le Figaro, the Dossier Centre is an investigative project of the outlawed Russian political opposition, and funded by exiled Russian billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The group says the bumper PDF was uploaded by Moscow’s city government to their own website listing special consumers of electricity to be guaranteed a connection in all circumstances, and most of the content is not secret, as many of the institutions are things like hospitals, police stations, and federal buildings.
Yet other entries in the document reveal “outwardly inconspicuous buildings” harbouring intelligence agencies. Many of these are in ordinary residential buildings, and the detail of the list — the group claims — reveals what may be the true purpose of several mysterious buildings in Russia that have been the subject of past speculation.
Comparing the data with satellite and other imagery, the Dossier Centre concludes that intelligence officers appear to be fond of living or working in historic houses in elite neighbourhoods. In North Ossetia, a Russian Republic in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe, there are security services outposts on the special list in “almost every village”.
The regular military was also listed in great detail, with the addresses of “headquarters, barracks, communications center, ammunition depot” of some units laid out.
The release of the list, which the Dossier Centre has published in map form, with potential targets ranked by likely priority for a Ukrainian drone strike with blast radiuses around the addresses illustrated, may present a serious security risk to the Russian government — assuming it isn’t itself disinformation. A key feature of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has become a nightly exchange of attack drones and cruise missiles, with Ukrainian forces enjoying some major deep strike successes with British-made Storm Shadows against strategic targets.
The world was provided with a dramatic demonstration of the potential utility of these missiles last month, after Ukrainian forces landed two of them into the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol. While initial claims the admiral in command of the fleet was killed in the attack may have been mistaken, it remains the case Ukraine’s strikes against the building, and two ships in dry dock undergoing repairs, appear to have caused Russia to disperse its fleet across the Black Sea beyond range.
While this move may protect Russian assets, it also protects the Ukrainian mainland from being attacked by those ships, as they have also put themselves out of range. Russia has dispersed some of its fleet to Novorossiysk, a Russian Black Sea port 200 miles east on the far side of Crimea, beyond the Kerch Strait already, and reports now claim it is seeking to move them even further away.
Reuters reported on Thursday that Russia had signed a deal to establish a permanent naval base in Abkhazia, a breakaway region of Georgia. While the fleet would presumably be safe from Ukrainian counter-strikes there, the port of Sokhumi — where a Russian warship arrived last week — is some 390 miles from their normal headquarters.
This dispersal resembles a “functional defeat” for the Russian Navy in the Black Sea, the United Kingdom said this week, a situation where most ships were still afloat, but were no longer able to meaningfully engage in combat operations.