The Zhemchuzhnikov family is listed as the neighbors of the Tsarikovs in the Women’s House. The head of the family, Sergei Zhemchuzhnikov, was born in Kharkov, was previously a representative of the GRU in Tajikistan, and now serves under the cover of the 1st Secretary in the Interests Section of the Russian Federation at the Swiss Embassy in Georgia. As is known, after the events in South Ossetia in August 2008, Georgia severed diplomatic relations with Russia, and Switzerland took over the representation of Moscow’s interests. The Interest Section operates in the building of the Russian Consulate in Tbilisi and has 13 members. In 2012, a tragedy struck the Zhemchuzhnikov family: during a relay race at the Novoperedelkino school, their 15-year-old son Denis died of cardiac arrest. Judging by TV report “Vesti-Moscow”the teenager could still be saved, but the ambulance arrived with broken equipment.
Before Lieutenant Colonel Zhemchuzhnikov, the post of First Secretary in Tbilisi was held by another graduate of the Military Aviation Administration, Colonel Evgeny Shipilov, who had previously served in the 175th communications control brigade in the Rostov region (military unit 01957), and then spying under the roof of a diplomat in Lithuania. Coincidentally, Shipilov’s name disappeared from the website of the section immediately after last year’s visit to Moscow by Swiss intelligence chief Jean-Philippe Godin, during which he met with the Secretary of the Security Council Nikolay Patrushev. By official information, between Patrushev and Godin “an exchange of views took place on the issues of countering the coronavirus infection and issues of strategic stability and bilateral cooperation in the field of security.” Meanwhile, a source in the Georgian parliament told The Insider that the main purpose of Gaudin’s visit “was not the pandemic, but the situation with Shipilov, who was identified by our counterintelligence. The guy completely lost the coast and behaved like at home. As you can see, Patrushev and Godin came to a compromise: Shipilov, who had become “embarrassed”, was sent back to Moscow, and Lieutenant Colonel Zhemchuzhnikov was sent in his place.
Six women from the Women’s House had their husbands seconded to the Ministry of Economic Development. Representative offices of the Ministry of Economic Development are located in 58 foreign countries – and in almost every one of them there are “roofers” from the GRU who are engaged in “establishing trade relations.” Of the six seconded, there is information about only two.
The first is Sergey Sikachev. He graduated from the A. S. Popov Naval Institute of Radio Electronics in St. Petersburg, and then worked as an adviser at the Consulate of the Russian Federation in San Francisco. In 2017, US authorities closed the consulate, calling it a spy nest.
The second is Sergey Bublikov. Apparently, he was not the last person in the Balkan residency of the GRU. In 2006, he worked in Bulgaria under the guise of a trade representative of the Russian Federation. Shortly before the organized GRU coup attempts in Montenegro in 2016, Bublikov was transferred to this country, and he served as an adviser to the Russian ambassador.
YouTube has video, where three months before the arrests of the conspirators, he met with the leader of the local “Night Wolves” Vukoman Bulatovich and pro-Kremlin Cossacks. When the coup d’état failed, Bublikov was again returned to Bulgaria to the trade mission. However, in March 2022, the Bulgarian authorities accused him of espionage and sent out of the country.
In the process of studying at the ACA, some did not pull the upcoming career of an illegal immigrant – such were transferred to the faculty of military attaches, but left in a hostel. Indeed, many residents of the hostel on the street. People’s Militia – wives of military attachés. This formally diplomatic position is de facto always occupied by the GER. So, a graduate of the Leningrad Combined Arms Military School, Nikolai Tsybulya, served in the Marine Corps in Sevastopol, where he was spotted by a recruiter from the GRU. After studying at the 2nd faculty of the ACA, Tsybulya was sent as a military attache to South Africa, then to Nigeria. Now a former marine, he is an attaché in Ethiopia. Another attaché, Pavel Anisov, serves at the Russian Embassy in Mongolia.
Colonel Igor Shcherbakov previously dealt with military issues in Switzerland, and now his name is listed on the website of the Russian embassy in Armenia. It was not possible to find out where Sergei Makhovnev now serves, but he previously served as a military representative in the United States and Mexico. But the assistant air force attache at the Russian Embassy in the Czech Republic, Viktor Budyak, was added to the list of persona non grata in 2021 and expelled from the country.
Among the residents of the Women’s Home there are two dozen underage children whose fathers studied espionage at the ACA. Moreover, the names of the parents among the residents of the house are absent. One of them is Sofia Solomasova, born in 2010. Her father, Sergei Solomasov, was registered in an officer’s dormitory in the north of Moscow for the purpose of conspiracy. Until 2017, he served as a military attache in France, and now he has settled in Slovakia.
In March of this year, the Slovak counterintelligence posted on the network an operational video filming, in which Solomasov recruits freelance journalist Hlavné správy Bogusz Barbar and offers him 1,000 euros to lift: “We need to drink together, talk. Have frank conversations. I need political information about relations between countries, within NATO, the European Union. Can you do that?” Solomasov is interested.
The African countries are supervised by the 4th Directorate of the GRU, and the Quartet employees played an important role in organizing the Russia-Africa summits. Moreover, according to The Insider’s source in military intelligence, some officials began to cooperate with the GRU back in the days of the Soviet Union.
Other “jackets” from the hostel settled in educational institutions where there are direct contacts with foreign universities.
For example, students of the Moscow State Regional University (MGOU) do not even realize that Valery Makarchenko, adviser to the rector’s office for international affairs, worked for a long time in the Munich residency of the GRU. After returning to Moscow, he established the Center for German Language and Culture, but the business had to be curtailed due to the pandemic. Meanwhile, Makarchenko did not lose ties with Bavaria and, until the closure of borders with the EU, constantly organized visits to Moscow by German officials, professors and students.
As The Insider found out, there are irreparable losses among the former residents of the Women’s Home. One of the dropouts is Alexander Pukhkan, a graduate of the 3rd faculty of the ACA (operational-tactical intelligence). He was born in Riga in the family of a soldier of the Soviet army and studied at the Minsk Suvorov School. Then there was a move to Russia, service in the Separate Reconnaissance Company of the Airborne Forces in Ivanovo (military unit 65391) and the 45th Airborne Special Forces Regiment in Kubinka (military unit 28337). According to some reports, Pukhkan commanded a GRU sabotage group in Syria, Crimea and Donbass, and in 2015 he died unexpectedly from a stroke.
Curiously, Pukhkan has a younger brother Dmitry, who went the other way. After graduating from the Kaluga and Moscow theological schools, he was sent to Kyiv at the disposal of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), where he made a successful spiritual career and rose to the rank of archimandrite. A year ago, by the decision of the Holy Synod of the UOC, Archimandrite Anthony (Pukhkan) was elected bishop of the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Cherkasy diocese. It should be noted that after the Russian aggression against Ukraine, hard times have come for the UOC, which is under the patronage of the Moscow Patriarchate: for the majority of parishioners, the ambivalent position of the leadership of the UOC caused at least bewilderment, criminal cases were opened against several dozen priests for collaborationism, and the SBU conducted searches in some churches and monasteries. The leadership of the UOC urgently announced the severance of most ties with the Moscow Patriarchate and issued a statement: “The Church calls on its flock by prayer and good deeds to help the Motherland defend peace in all its territories, strongly condemning the aggression of the Russian army against the Ukrainian people.”