Investigators Reveal Secret Unit Picking Targets for Russia Mass Strikes

An investigative report has revealed a "hitherto secretive group" of Russians allegedly responsible for choosing the targets for missile strikes in Ukraine.

Bellingcrat, an investigative journalism group based in the Netherlands and founded by a British journalist in 2014, released an extensive report on Monday purporting to have found the group, consisting of "dozens of military engineers." The investigation that led to the discovery lasted roughly six months and was done in collaboration with The Insider, a Russia-focused independent media outlet, and Der Spiegel, the largest news outlet in Germany. The report included a chart naming and showing a photo of most members of the clandestine group.

Among numerous attacks, the group was reportedly responsible for the massive attack launched against Ukrainian cities on October 10 that killed 20 and injured more than 100. To that point, it was the largest coordinated missile strikes by Russia since it invaded Ukraine on February 24.

"Following a six-month-long investigation, Bellingcat and its investigative partners The Insider and Der Spiegel were able to discover a hitherto secretive group of dozens of military engineers with an educational and professional background in missile programming," the report, written by Christo Grozev, said. "Phone metadata shows contacts between these individuals and their superiors spiked shortly before many of the high-precision Russian cruise missile strikes that have killed hundreds and deprived millions in Ukraine of access to electricity and heating."

The report added that the group works out of two locations: the Ministry of Defense headquarters in Moscow and the Admiralty headquarters in St. Petersburg. The group is "buried deep" within the staff of the Main Computation Centre of the General Staff, a vast subset of the country's armed forces, and is sometimes referred to as "GVC."

Most of the group is reportedly made of younger men and women with backgrounds mostly in information technology (IT), though some are also said to have backgrounds in "computer-gaming." Their work also extends further then the invasion of Urkaine.

"Some also worked at Russia's military command centre in Damascus in the period between 2016 and 2021, a timeframe during which Russia deployed cruise missiles in Syria," the Bellingcrat report said. "Others are recipients of various military awards, including from Russian President Vladimir Putin."

Reporters with Bellingcrat and its partners attempted to reach out to each member of the group, with various questions about them and their duties. All but three either ignored phone calls or denied affiliation with the group despite being sent photo evidence via text. One senior officer reportedly hung up the phone as soon as he realized who the reporters were. Another officer did not deny their part in the group but declined to speak about it, as they believed it would not be safe to do so.

"Another member shared with us, on condition of anonymity, certain contextual information about how the group was tasked with manually programming the sophisticated flight paths of Russia's high-precision cruise missiles and several photographs of their commander Lt. Col. Igor Bagnyuk," the report added. "This individual also provided group photos of the GVC computation group posing in front of a Ministry of Defence building in Moscow."

Newsweek reached out to Russian government officials for comment.