The head of the Sputnik Moldova news agency, Vitaly Denisov, who was expelled from Moldova and banned from entering the country for ten years, turned out to be an employee of 72nd Special Service Center, says The Insider.
Denisov, a native of the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine, graduated in 1992 Lvovskoe Higher Military-Political School (LVVPU), writes The Insider, refused to take the Ukrainian oath and left for Moscow. In the capital, he was accommodated in an officers' dormitory at 38 Khoroshevskoye Shosse, which is located not far from the GRU headquarters.
According to the tax database, Denisov was listed as an employee of the Ministry of Defense newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda. He was also published in Tribune Abroad, a publication that, as a source close to the intelligence services told The Insider, issued press credentials to GRU employees to work abroad.
In 2005, the publication adds, Denisov received from the Ministry of Defense an apartment on Admiral Lazarev Street and an officer’s certificate, and in 2013 he began working in the department of the Investigative Committee for the Moscow region, but what position he held there, The Insider finds out failed — Denisov has no legal education.
After this, as an anonymous source in the Ministry of Defense told the publication, Denisov moved to the 72nd Special Service Center, which, in the interests of the GRU, is engaged in the spread of disinformation abroad. In 2016, he was awarded the rank of Colonel of the Airborne Forces, and in 2019 he was appointed editor-in-chief of Sputnik in South Ossetia. After that, Denisov headed Sputnik in Baku, and in 2022 — in Chisinau.
On September 13, employees of the Moldova Migration Service issued Denisov an order for a 10-year entry ban due to a “threat to national security,” took him to the airport and bought him a ticket to Moscow. According to Denisov, he “was not allowed to pack his things or pick up his pets.” Propagandist Dmitry Kiselev commented on Denisov’s deportation as follows: “The destructive policy of the Moldovan authorities crosses all adequate boundaries of interstate relations.”
A few days after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Sputnik website was blocked in Moldova, and on March 7, 2022, broadcasting also stopped agency radio station. After the start of the war, the country's authorities accused Russia of preparing actions “to destabilize the situation.”
In July 2023, The Insider and Jurnal TV released an investigation about intelligence officers at the Russian embassy in Chisinau. After this, Moldova expelled 36 diplomats from the country.
In May 2023, the European Union imposed sanctions against Igor Chaika, a Russian businessman and son of former Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika, because of “FSB projects to destabilize Moldova.” A year earlier, the US Treasury also introduced sanctions due to the Kremlin’s interference in the internal political and economic affairs of Moldova.