Media: GRU General Overseeing Sabotage and Assassinations Abroad Killed in Strike on Russian "Shadow Fleet" Tanker

Andrey Averyanov (left)

According to journalists, Ukrainian military personnel operating from Libya in coordination with official Tripoli might have been behind the operation. On board the tanker, in addition to the crew, were about ten high-ranking Russian intelligence officers disguised as sailors.

"This is the best way for a Russian intelligence officer to move around," explained one of the sources.

The strike resulted in two deaths and seven injuries. Averyanov was among the deceased. Moscow has not officially commented on this information.

RFI's interlocutors note that there was a response shortly after the incident: on December 23, in Turkey, a plane carrying the Chief of Staff of Libya, General Mohamed al-Haddad, crashed. According to the radio station's sources, the cause was an explosion on board, and Russia might be involved in the incident, although there is no official confirmation of this.

Another incident occurred on March 19, when a pipeline caught fire at Libya's largest oil field, El Sharara. Russian ammunition was found at the scene, but Libyan authorities have not yet made official statements about those responsible.

However, renowned investigator Christo Grozev considers the information about Averyanov's death to be fake.

Andrey Averyanov was born in 1966 in Turkmenistan and graduated from the Tashkent Higher Combined Arms Command School.

In 2013, as "Radio Svaboda" wrote, he headed the secret military unit 29155, which was responsible for GRU operations in Europe. The New York Times, citing Western intelligence data, wrote that this unit, among other things, was involved in the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Great Britain, the attempted assassination of Bulgarian businessman Emilian Gebrev, and the attempted coup in Montenegro in 2016.

According to an investigation by The Insider, Averyanov participated in organizing explosions at ammunition depots in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic. In 2024, he was declared wanted by Czech police in connection with the explosions in Vrbětice.

In recent years, he held the position of Deputy Chief of the GRU and oversaw the African direction, and, according to RFI, was supposed to head the "African corps" created by the Russian Ministry of Defense after the disbandment of PMC "Wagner".

As RFI found out, Ukraine deployed a military presence in Libya in 2025 in agreement with the government of Abdel Hamid Dbeibah. According to sources, more than 200 Ukrainian specialists are stationed in the country, working at several facilities, including an airbase in Misrata and infrastructure for launching maritime and aerial drones in the Mellitah area. From these positions, it is claimed, attacks were carried out on Russian vessels in the Mediterranean Sea, including the strike on Qendil and the gas tanker Arctic Metagaz.

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