On October 5, 2023, a diplomatic scandal erupted in Cyprus. Alexander Gasyuk, a correspondent for the "Russian Newspaper" who was sitting in a car near his home in Nicosia, was arrested by Cyprus police officers. The journalist was taken out of the car, handcuffed, and placed in an official vehicle. As the car started to move, a man who was later identified by some Russian media as Dmitry Dvoynikov, an embassy employee, threw himself on the hood and was dragged for several dozen meters before also being detained.
As revealed by the Cypriot channel AlphaNews, Gasyuk's temporary residency permit had been revoked in September "for security reasons," and he was asked to leave Cyprus. Despite Gasyuk's and the Russian embassy's protests to the Cypriot Ministry of Foreign Affairs, no effect was achieved. According to Gasyuk, the Cypriot law enforcement officers injured his arm during the arrest. Gasyuk, along with his family, was deported to Moscow via Dubai the following day, while Dvoynikov was simply released.
On October 6, the Cyprus ambassador to Moscow was summoned to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where a protest was lodged regarding the "unacceptable and provocative actions against the accredited correspondent of the Russian Newspaper, A.G. Gasyuk, in Nicosia, as well as the Russian Embassy employee, D.V. Dvoynikov, in the performance of his duties." The statement by RIA "News" indicated that both were carrying out official duties.
The most interesting aspect of these statements was the information that Dvoynikov was detained while performing his official duties. This suggests that Gasyuk's protection from the Cypriot police and the obstruction of his arrest were part of Dvoynikov's job responsibilities. This doesn't align well with Gasyuk's official role as a journalist for the Moscow newspaper. Ordinary journalists do not work abroad under the protection of their country's embassy staff from local authorities.
None of the reports specified what particular official duties led to Dvoynikov's extravagant and seemingly senseless actions at that moment, nor did they clarify what exactly Gasyuk was doing. However, it was evident that he was engaged in some activity. It is quite possible that he was conducting surveillance on something or someone, and Dvoynikov was covering for him. This gives grounds to assume that both Gasyuk and Dvoynikov belong to the same agency, one of the Russian special services (FSB, SVR, or GRU), and were carrying out the same assignment.
The official spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, reacted to this event with her characteristic exaltation: "The brazen deportation of the correspondent of the Russian Newspaper, A.G. Gasyuk, preceded by an organized special operation to exert psychological pressure on the Russian journalist and his family, culminating in the brutal beating of the media representative, represents another link in the coordinated campaign by the 'collective West' to suppress any alternative sources of information in its information space." According to Zakharova, Gasyuk's deportation is part of a campaign to suppress freedom of opinion and the press in Cyprus by the "collective West."
The Russian Newspaper commented on the event in a calmer tone: "This absolutely wild provocation, involving the forceful detention of the journalist of the Russian Newspaper, candidate of sciences and writer Alexander Gasyuk, in once a safe and calm Cyprus for Russians, traces back to the Anglo-Saxon influence."
Indeed, the Cypriot press reports that the decision to deport Gasyuk was made "after the Cypriot authorities received a signal from the CIA that he was involved in suspicious activities and was noticed conducting surveillance on objects in Nicosia." Given the discrepancy in opinions about the professional activities of Gasyuk and Dvoynikov, it makes sense to take a closer look at the biographies of both individuals.
The correspondent for the "Russian Newspaper," Alexander Gennadievich Gasyuk, was born in July 1981 in the town of Skhodnya near Moscow. He has repeatedly traveled on editorial assignments to CIS countries, Europe, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East. He was a correspondent for "RG" in the USA from 2010 to 2013 and in Greece from 2014 to 2019. Since 2020, he has been working in the pool of the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs. He won the All-Russian competition of international journalists in the nomination "Best Interview on International Issues" (2012). He is the author of the book "Viktor But: The Authentic Story of the 'Weapon Baron'" (2021).
Strangely, there is no information about Gasyuk's education on the internet. During the Soviet era (as is the case in Russia now), the profession of an international journalist usually served as a cover for the work of special service agents. Training for this, as well as other professions related to work abroad and contacts with foreigners, is typically conducted in specialized institutions closely linked to the special services, such as MGIMO, the journalism department and history department of MGU, the Patrice Lumumba University (now the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia), and so on. It is impossible to find out from open sources where Gasyuk studied, but he defended his dissertation for the degree of Candidate of Historical Sciences at the Lumumba University in 2008. The topic was "The Foreign Policy Propaganda of the USSR on the Eve of the Great Patriotic War: 1939-1941." The relevance of the topic in the abstract is explained by the "need to build an effective system of information support for the foreign policy course of the new Russia, taking into account the achievements of the Soviet period."
Stalin's foreign policy propaganda was always notoriously deceitful. Therefore, the study of the propagandist "achievements of the Soviet period" for their use in the new era speaks for itself. Such a topic fully aligns with Putin's policy of restoring the Soviet regime and Soviet propaganda methods. The titles of numerous articles by Gasyuk in the "Russian Newspaper" confirm his profession as a typical propagandist-fabricator. Here are a few headlines from recent months: "Cyprus, which joined the anti-Russian sanctions, has declined in competitiveness rankings," "Olive oil will become a luxury in Europe due to rising prices," "Cyprus celebrates the Day of Reunification of new regions with Russia," "Patriotic events launched in Cyprus ahead of Victory Day."
In 2021, Gasyuk published a book about Viktor Bout, a Russian intelligence officer convicted in the United States for 25 years for illegal arms trading. The essence and genre of this work are evident from the preface: "In the course of working on the book, it became clear that Bout's case is not just a story about fabricated myths and a spun image of the ominous Russian 'arms baron' through 'independent' non-governmental organizations and media... It is a direct encroachment on the interests of Russia and its citizens, another, and seemingly not the last, manifestation of arrogance towards our country from the United States." Undoubtedly, the book justifying Bout's crimes was written at the behest of Russian intelligence services. Such an order could only be obtained by someone close to the intelligence services.
Gasyuk worked as a special correspondent for the Russian Newspaper in the United States for several years, and it is assumed that the American authorities understood perfectly well who they were dealing with. Apparently, the Cypriot intelligence had been monitoring him for quite some time, as evidenced by the circumstances of his arrest and the extravagant behavior of the embassy employee, Doynikov.
Danil Viktorovich (not Dmitry, as indicated in the reports) Doynikov was born in August 1980 in Kaliningrad. Exact information about his education and profession could not be found, but an analysis of his and his wife's pages on the Russian social network "Odnoklassniki" suggests that he belonged to the Border Service of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). Specifically, it seems to be related to the military unit 9831 (Bagrationovsk Border Training Detachment). His father was also an officer of the border troops and served in Afghanistan.
Doynikov also added several people who served in the military unit 9831 (Bagrationovsk Border Training Detachment) to a group of friends called "Colleagues."
Among Doynikov's friends in the "Colleagues" group, there is a person named Igor Avdonkin, who served in the military unit 60654 (Elstal (Olympisches Dorf), GDR) from 1970 to 1972. In the "About Me" section, it is indicated that he worked at the Russian Embassy in Botswana. It is also known that he worked at the Russian Embassy in Tajikistan.
According to the photos on his page, Doynikov himself appears to have served for some time at the Russian diplomatic mission in Tajikistan as an employee of the Russian Embassy. However, Doynikov's wife refers to her husband as a military officer in her comments on social media.
In one of the photographs, Doynikov is dressed in tactical military attire with a plate carrier and has a badge that has been obscured by the photo editor. This may suggest his affiliation with Russian military formations abroad, such as a military attaché at the embassy.
All of the above does not provide grounds to doubt Danil Viktorovich Doynikov's affiliation with the Russian special services, most likely the FSB. Doynikov's behavior during the detention of Gasyuk may seem absurd at first glance. However, the situation described in the book by former KGB officer Vladimir Popov, "Conspiracy of Scoundrels: Notes of a Former KGB Major," might shed light on the essence of what happened. It recounts the preparation for a meeting in a Paris café between KGB officer Yevgeny Ivanov (later a Lieutenant General in the KGB) and Maria Rosanov, the wife of Andrei Sinyavsky, a hero of the famous 1966 trial. Both of them emigrated from the USSR in 1973.
"The KGB residency officer, operating under the cover of a consular worker, was tasked not only with monitoring the situation in the café but also with ensuring the physical security of Ivanov in the event of any attempts by the French authorities to arrest him during the conversation with Rosanov, a former Soviet citizen now under the protection of France. It was also the responsibility of the residency officer to promptly transport Ivanov to the Soviet embassy in the event of an arrest or any undesirable turn of events. Equipped with a portable radio, the officer was in communication with other members of the Soviet embassy's operational group covering Ivanov and the Sinyavskys' meeting. The group also included an operational driver for the residency."
So it turns out that Evgeny Ivanov, who did not have diplomatic immunity, was under the protection of an embassy official, who was supposed to shield him from the police in case of danger, put him in a car with diplomatic plates, and deliver him to the embassy. If Doynikov had a similar assignment, then his leap onto the hood of the Cypriot police car looks at least explainable. He was simply fulfilling his duty in a hopeless situation, much like Alexander Matrosov. The events described took place in 1976, but it is unlikely that the tactics of the Russian special services today differ significantly from the tactics of the KGB half a century ago.
The fact that Gasyuk and Doynikov were carrying out some kind of official duty at the time of Gasyuk's arrest was confirmed by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Perhaps the other members of the operational group, who did not throw themselves onto the car hood, simply went unnoticed by the press.
At the moment of Gasyuk's arrest, Doynikov was sitting in a car parked nearby. In a video taken from the balcony by Gasyuk's wife Anna and circulated in the press, it is visible how Cypriot police officers without any abrupt movements remove Gasyuk from his car and place him in theirs. One of them, with his arms outstretched, keeps two men trying to approach the detainee at bay. One of them is Doynikov. Then Doynikov stands in front of the car, and when it starts moving, he lies on the hood. The second runs alongside the car and tries to grab the driver's door handle. It is unlikely that whatever task Gasyuk and Doynikov were performing before the arrest had anything to do with journalism.
The deportation from Cyprus of the Russian journalist-spy "for security reasons" is the first such case in the entire history of Russian-Cypriot relations. And, one would like to think, not the last.
Since the beginning of Russia's war with Ukraine, about 200 Russian diplomats, or rather intelligence officers operating under diplomatic cover, have been expelled from EU countries.
Counterintelligence agencies in different countries are usually well-informed about who in Russian diplomatic missions are "clean" diplomats and who are intelligence agency employees masquerading as diplomats. In Soviet times, the latter made up about 60% of embassy and consulate staff. Now, it is probably even more. With the reduction of Russia's international relations with Western countries after the start of the Ukrainian war, the activities of Russian embassies there have effectively boiled down to the activities of intelligence agencies. Moreover, the value of this activity has significantly increased under the new conditions. It can be said with a high degree of certainty that the expulsion of the vast majority of Russian embassy staff from EU countries will not affect Russia's diplomatic and international contacts, which are already minimal. However, it will greatly impede the activities of Russian intelligence services in recruiting agents in political and business circles, obtaining secret information, industrial espionage, and circumventing sanctions.
In the context of Russia's political and economic isolation, its diplomatic missions in EU countries primarily function as intelligence service residencies, so reducing their diplomatic (read: espionage) presence to a minimum seems quite reasonable. At least until the end of the Russian-Ukrainian war and the establishment of a political regime in Russia that can be dealt with.
Source: cyprus-daily.news
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