"We didn't take this into account, sorry." RFI deleted investigation into liquidation of GRU general
French radio station RFI officially admitted its mistake and deleted its high-profile material, which claimed that GRU General Andrey Averyanov died as a result of a Ukrainian drone attack.
The initial version of the RFI investigation was based on information from "well-informed" Libyan sources. It was claimed that Ukrainian military personnel, allegedly based in Libya, attacked the tanker QENDIL on December 19, 2025, on board of which was Averyanov — a GRU general who oversaw sabotage and assassinations abroad.
However, journalists later admitted that they did not take into account evidence of the general's presence in Madagascar in February 2026.
The well-known investigative journalist Christo Grozev played a special role in exposing the error. He called the RFI material "a completely fake story" and pointed out the dubious nature of the primary sources of information.
"The only source of these false rumors [about Averyanov's death] is a discredited Telegram account that published them almost three months ago," Grozev stated.
The RFI editorial board confirmed that evidence of Averyanov's visit to Madagascar makes the version of his death impossible.
"Accordingly, the content of this article has been deleted. We apologize to our readers for these errors," the media's statement read.
The deleted material also claimed the presence of 200 Ukrainian military personnel in Libya, who allegedly conduct operations against the Russian shadow fleet.
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