Russia wants to confront NATO but dares not fight it on the battlefield – so it’s waging a hybrid war instead

Averyanov allegedly oversaw the 2018 Novichok nerve agent poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury in England, and the 2014 blast in an ammunition depot in the Czech Republic that killed two people. Now the deputy head of the GRU, he is wanted in the Czech Republic over his role in the blast in the town of Vrbetice. Russia has repeatedly denied its involvement in both events. “He was previously the head of 29155 unit, which is known for its participation in the Salisbury attack, they attempted to organize that coup d’etat in Montenegro, they had operations to destabilize Moldova and Macedonia,” said Oleksandr Danylyuk, an associate fellow at Royal United Services Institute, a UK defense and security think tank, and a former Ukrainian defense and foreign intelligence official.