A married couple of illegal Russian spies, Nikolai and Elena Shaposhnikov, were the coordinators of a series of explosions and poisonings in Europe organized by Russian military intelligence, according to an investigation by The Insider.
The Shaposhnikovs lived in the Czech Republic under the guise of political emigrants. They were granted asylum in the early 1990s, having changed several refugee camps. The family applied for Czech citizenship. At the same time, Shaposhnikov concealed his service in Afghanistan, and Shaposhnikova said that when she acquired refugee status, she handed over her Ukrainian passport, although she continued to use it to travel to Russia and Ukraine.
In the early 2000s, Shaposhnikov shared his knowledge of Soviet weapons with Petr Bernatik, an engineer by training. Bernatic was a former secret agent of the Czechoslovakian state security apparatus who maintained close ties with the Soviet occupation forces.
Bernatik’s largest arms trade business was the Imex Group, with many of its customers located in regions of the world where Soviet-era weapons were still in use and appropriate ammunition was needed. Shaposhnikov worked there as a business development manager.
Olena Shaposhnikova ran her business officially. But, according to the investigation, she was involved in the work of Imex and directed her husband’s actions in direct coordination with the head of GRU military unit 29155, General Andrei Averyanov. Despite the fact that the family’s income was approximately $650 per month, the Shaposhnikovs bought real estate in the Czech Republic and a villa in Greece. The real estate was used by the GRU as a safe house.
In addition, Olena owned an offshore company of unknown purpose registered in the Marshall Islands and controlled two bank accounts in Switzerland. These accounts, as well as unexplained cash infusions into the Shaposhnikovs’ Czech bank accounts and a cash payment scheme, appear to have been the real source of funds for the family.
The Shaposhnikovs collected information for Russian spies. The spy couple was involved in explosions at ammunition depots in Vrbice, Czech Republic, and an attempted assassination of Bulgarian arms dealer Yemelian Gebrev, who supplied weapons to Ukraine.
The Shaposhnikovs have recently become interested in Czech investigators. After that, Nikolai Shaposhnikov began to abuse alcohol, neglected his medication, and died in February 2024 of a heart attack. Olena Shaposhnikova continues to insist that she is being persecuted because of her Russian origin. She lives in Greece and holds a Russian passport issued by military unit 29155, a unit of Chepyga and Mishkin, saboteurs and assassins from Russian military intelligence. The authorities of the country should soon decide whether she will be extradited to the Czech Republic.
