For months now, Western intelligence and security services have been warning of a worrying trend: random individuals – “freelancers”, “brokers”, “consumer agents” – are being recruited, usually via Telegram, often unknowingly, to carry out various covert, sometimes destructive tasks: surveillance, arson, sabotage, the spread of disinformation. The video began circulating in early August, mainly on Telegram channels known for their Russian nationalism and pro-war views. A video circulating on the Telegram network in August was a montage of ominous images, an attempt to recruit what Western officials called “middlemen” or “disposable agents.” A woman’s voice, amplified by echo, speaks the message as pixelated, sepia-toned images of Russia’s economic crisis in the 1990s transform into imperial and church symbols, and into St. Basil’s Cathedral on Red Square. (…) Police said the men were allegedly recruited by members of the Wagner Group, a semi-disbanded Russian mercenary organization whose operations are now largely controlled by the Ministry of Defense. Behind the “Defend the Homeland” video and the recruitment bot is a GRU-affiliated unit known as the Melody Intelligence Center. The center produced a similar video in 2024 that included the fictional Eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings films. New findings by Sistema, the Russian investigative unit of Radio Free Europe (RFE), for the first time link videos and recruitment bots – automated programs within Telegram – directly to the GRU. The man behind both videos is the deputy head of Melodia, who is also a notorious Russian neo-Nazi blogger and mercenary who fought in Ukraine, celebrated Adolf Hitler’s birthday, called for the castration of Ukrainians, and described warfare as a sexual experience. “When a man goes to war, it’s sexual desire,” the man, Yevgeny Raskazov, said in a video interview broadcast in 2021, about six months before Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine. “It’s about as lustful as wanting a woman. When you kill (an enemy), you enjoy the fact that his wife is a widow. You enjoy watching them cry as a family, watching him come home in a coffin. And you get an erection!” From the ashes of the Wagner group In October 2023, Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseev, the second-in-command of the GRU, presented medals to men who fought in the battle to capture the Ukrainian stronghold of Bakhmut.
via vijesti: Russian neo-Nazi in secret recruitment campaign for GRU military intelligence