"Leaks" and "bribes" of Russian Defense Ministry generals will end the ATO in a matter of days. General Nikolai Pankov is an example.
Having obtained some insider information and analyzed publicly available information, we have formed the following picture. We present it to you in this article.
General Nikolai Pankov
General Pankov: The Fifth Column in the Russian Army or Our Chance of Victory
The anti-terrorist operation is weighing heavily on Ukraine. Almost daily reports of casualties among our heroes arrive, and the daily cost of maintaining the army under these conditions amounts to approximately 95 million hryvnias— Yatsenyuk on the daily costs of the war . And there's no end in sight. On the one hand, we will never accept the loss of Donbas, while on the other, the separatists, supported by the Russian army, are not giving up their positions. The sixth stage of mobilization is already underway. Which will be the last?
The key word here is "with the support of the Russian army." The separatists alone are unlikely to hold out for even a week.
Of course, considerable efforts are being made to neutralize the Russian army. This includes the powerful international support Ukraine has secured in its just war against the Russian occupiers, and the valiant actions of our troops. However, our intelligence agencies seem to have overlooked an excellent opportunity to corrupt the Russian army from within. It is well known that Russia is in a deep systemic crisis, plagued by widespread corruption, especially in the highest echelons of power, which is also widespread in the army. Therefore, the task is to find a key figure in the upper echelons of the army who would cooperate with Ukraine and bring the Russian army to a state that would prevent it from providing significant support to the separatists.
We analyzed the Russian information space and found such a person. We essentially did the job of the SBU. He's little known here, yet he holds a very important position in the army.
This is Deputy State Secretary of the Ministry of Defense, General of the Army Nikolai Pankov. The man responsible for (drumroll, please) personnel placement in the army. He's implicated in a number of corruption scandals and is now (drumroll, please) clearly in need of a large sum of money. Essentially, he's the perfect recruiting target. We'll tell you more about him.
Nikolai Pankov is a career KGB officer. He has served in the Russian army since the early 10s. He has held his current position for over ten years. He is the head of army personnel – all appointments are made through him, while routine work is handled by his immediate subordinate, Colonel General Viktor Goremykin, head of the Main Personnel Directorate. He is a general personally loyal to Pankov and a highly capable personnel officer, but not as influential as Pankov. FLB: Anatoly Serdyukov is just the tip of the iceberg. Things are much more dangerous.
Pankov's entire military career, as the Russian publication Vek writes, took place within the walls of a single building—the Ministry of Defense itself. " Was General Pankov a 'desktop general'—a bomb for Minister Shoigu?" He's a typical "parquet general" who never served a day in the military, and it's no surprise that at a certain point he came into conflict with "combat generals." Essentially, he purged the Russian army of combat generals who were even remotely professional. The Moscow Post cites a list of these generals: " State Secretary General Pankov failed to deceive Minister Shoigu ." In fact, even then, he had already done something beneficial for modern Ukraine. Unfortunately, after Shoigu's appointment, many of them returned to service.
The construction of a radar station near Anapa, dubbed "Pankov's dacha radar," caused a stir in the Russian media. In 2009, the Ministry of Defense approached Anapa City Council deputies with a request for land in the Bolshoy Utrish Nature Reserve to build a radar station there. The deputies were initially reluctant to hand over nearly 100 acres of seashore land to the defense ministry, so General Pankov came to Anapa and explained at a City Council meeting that the new station was needed due to the partial transfer of some Black Sea Fleet services to Russia. He convinced them, and a plot of land at 1a Naberezhnaya Street, Bolshoy Utrish village, Krasnodar Krai, was allocated for the benefit of the Motherland. A 600-square-meter reception house with a swimming pool, a boathouse, and other trappings of luxury were subsequently built on this plot. But there's nothing there that relates to the radar station... Pankov later told investigators that he knew nothing about such construction, and that he had "squeezed out" the land specifically for the radar station on Serdyukov's orders, and that he had no personal gain in the process. But it was at this time that Pankov received several hectares of valuable land in the Krasnodar region from Serdyukov for personal ownership. The investigation "convicted" State Secretary Pankov.
Pankov somehow managed to hush up this case, but there's a new, current, and still ongoing case. It concerns the relocation of the Central Navy Museum in St. Petersburg. In 2010, a decision was made to move the museum to new premises. Almost a billion rubles were allocated for this purpose. In December of that year, the Ministry of Defense signed a contract with Neviss-Komplekt LLC for a complex of activities to relocate the collections and exhibits from the Stock Exchange building on the Spit of Vasilievsky Island to the Kryukov Barracks on Truda Square. A total of 980 million rubles were transferred to this company's accounts. In December 2012, when the entire exhibit was supposed to have moved, Pankov signed a certificate of completion for the entire turnkey project. However, most of the exhibits were still in their original location at that time. It was then that the Main Military Investigation Department (GVSU) became interested in the case. It quickly became clear that approximately 400 million in state funds had disappeared into obscurity.
Museum director Andrei Lyalin was arrested. The evidence gathered by the investigation against Lyalin was so clear-cut that, seeking to ease his own fate, he entered into a pre-trial cooperation agreement and began to rat out his accomplices, as they say. Specifically, he testified that representatives of Nikolai Pankov had forced him to sign work acceptance certificates. "Andrei Lyalin pleaded guilty to acting as an intermediary in the transfer of a bribe of 15 million rubles. He received this money from Shvirikasov (the director of Neviss-Komplekt LLC) and transferred it to Masyutenko, a senior personnel officer at the Ministry of Defense (a subordinate of Nikolai Pankov)," stated the defendant's lawyer, Alexander Afanasyev.
The investigation conducted a series of confrontations involving Lyalin, Shvirikasov, and Matyusenko. During these confrontations, Lyalin testified that it was Masyutenko who ordered him to transfer 10% of the state contract amount allocated for the museum's relocation in 2011—980 million rubles. Moreover, Masyutenko told Lyalin that this money was intended for transfer "upward," that is, directly to the Defense Ministry leadership during Serdyukov's reign. Lyalin, of course, informed Shvirikasov that a kickback of this amount was required, and Shvirikasov, in turn, prepared 15 million rubles for Masyutenko. Masyutenko knew that the funds remaining after the kickback would not be enough to complete the work on time. Nevertheless, acceptance certificates—bogus, of course—for the relocation of the museum's property in 2011 were soon signed.
Lyalin testified to all this during interrogation, while Matyusenko, the direct "representative of the Ministry of Defense," vehemently denied his guilt in this matter. It's curious, however, that Shvirikasov testified during a confrontation that he had given Lyalin 56 million rubles, while Lyalin claimed to have received only 15 million rubles from Shvirikasov. Thus, the difference in testimony amounted to 41 million rubles. Apparently, Lyalin and Matyusenko "snagged" the 15 million rubles, while the latter transferred the 41 million rubles "upward," to his immediate superior, Nikolai Pankov. The investigation "frauded" State Secretary Pankov.
Pankov has been unable to hush up this case to this day, especially since at the height of it he lost his Kremlin patron, the presidential adviser on anti-corruption and civil service and personnel issues, Sergei Dubik. Dubik, Pankov, and Fridinsky came to an agreement between the three of them.
According to Russian law, if he doesn't repay 400 million rubles, even he, with his golden epaulettes, will face prison time. Pankov has always loved money, but now he's especially frantically searching for it, and the sum is unaffordable, despite all his corruption. Even if he finds and pays this amount, he'll still want to recoup the losses he's lost, hard-earned.
This thief is still out of jail, so the rumors that Pankov had found a new high-ranking patron were true. But no one has cleared his debt.
And although he always hands out many army positions for money, raising that kind of money isn't easy. He'll have to increase the number of general positions available for sale, even if the position is already occupied. Removing a general, vacating the position, and replacing him with another isn't a problem for him, and that's a great opportunity for us. Pankov could be a strategic investment that will pay off not only financially, but also in the lives of our men.
The reliability of Pankov's investment is also good because Chief Military Prosecutor Fridinsky remains in power. Russians are reporting that Fridinsky is removing generals from positions that need to be vacated in Pankov's interests. This allows not only for the right people to be appointed to important positions but also for the removal of those who are causing harm to Ukraine.
Of course, we've painted a far from attractive picture of Pankov—but that's precisely what's good about him for us. He's a perfect recruitment target. He's dishonest, thieving, in conflict with the Russian ultra-patriots, and also in need of money. Of course, they're not recruiting ultra-patriots from vatniks... How long can the SBU continue to protect prostitutes, customs, and businesses when the country is at war with an aggressor? Let them do something truly beneficial for Ukraine and the entire democratic world.
If Ukraine places the people it wants in charge of the Russian army, Puylo can issue any orders he wants, and they will be carried out to our advantage. Of course, the people we place will have to somehow account for their positions, and we need to allow them to achieve small victories. Let them earn medals and promotions for this. The more of our people occupy important positions, the better. Tactical victories and the strategic defeat of our enemy—that is our goal. And we are closer to it than ever before.
And if you think about it, the cost is little more than just one or two days of ATO containment. But the effect can be simply staggering.
Is it really so hard for the SBU to find that kind of money? Let it shock our oligarchs—they're not all out to profit from the war; they could be doing something useful for the country.
The enemy's flaws and vices must be exploited to our advantage. Perhaps the main flaw of the Putin system is its corruption and venality. And this could work very well for us. Pankov is far from alone.
Think about it there, in the SBU...
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