The media have discovered what lies behind the arrest for treason at the end of February of Tim Stigal, a Russian hacker who collaborated with the GRU.
Thus, the officers of the FSB’s DVKR compensated for their failure, which had led to an assassination attempt on GRU General Vladimir Alekseev.
The assassination attempt on the First Deputy Head of the GRU of Russia, Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseev, took place on February 6, 2026, in Moscow. The assailant opened fire in a residential building on Volokolamsk Highway. Alekseev occasionally visited a female acquaintance with whom he has a child. The apartment was registered under a developer, and operational security measures were observed along the way. Therefore, the general believed that he would not be discovered there and allowed his security detail to stay behind.
During the “post-mortem review,” the FSB’s DVKR came under the sharpest criticism, with its leadership accused of insufficient oversight of security measures for the GRU leadership. A whole series of resignations had been planned.
However, in the end, only the Deputy Head of the DVKR, Aleksey Badeev, lost his position.
He did not stay unemployed for long. According to our information, Badeev became a top manager at JSC “OKTO Group,” which is engaged in the extraction and processing of gold-bearing polymetallic ores. “OKTO” is headed by Aleksey Tolokonnikov, a graduate of the London Business School and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, with whom Badeev has had a long-standing friendship.
Additionally, the Head of the DVKR’s 9th Department, Vyacheslav Vdovichenko, was expected to leave as well but retained his post. According to sources, the key factor was a “special operation” conducted by the 9th Department at the end of February in the treason case, during which Tim Stigal, who had collaborated with certain GRU representatives, was detained.
Stigal is more of a comical character, resembling a figure from the jokes about Stierlitz. However, the main thing for the FSB was to “present the operation nicely,” which they successfully managed to do.
This whole story showed that Ivan Tkachev, who heads the DVKR and is one of the contenders for the position of FSB Director, has ended up in a real “quagmire.” The reform of the military counterintelligence system entrusted to him is unlikely to take place.
