As a former Russian soldier, he and his wife organized sabotage operations in Europe

According to travel and border crossing data obtained by The Insider, Yelena Shaposhnikova “secretly” obtained a Russian passport, which she used twice – in December 2015 and in December 2017 – to travel to Russia. The Insider claims that she was awarded the title of Hero of Russia during her first trip. There is no official confirmation of this information.

Investigator Hristo Grozev previously reported that GRU officers Alexander Myshkin and Anatoly Chepiga also received the title of Hero of Russia for bombing warehouses in the Czech Republic.

Elena and Nikolay Shaposhnikov refused to come to the Czech Republic for questioning, so representatives of the Greek and Bulgarian authorities talked to them. They claimed that all their contacts with members of the GRU were “personal” or driven by Imex’s business interests. According to them, they did not know that Kapino and Averyanov were employees of the Russian intelligence services and claimed that they did not knowingly help the GRU in any of the sabotage operations.

Nikolai Shaposhnikov died in February 2024. The cause of death is unknown, while “The Insider” claims that Shaposhnikov began to drink excessively after becoming a suspect in an investigation by the Czech police. Yelena Shaposhnikova lives in Greece.

In 2021, the Czech Republic accused the Russian Federation of orchestrating the October 16, 2014 bombing of weapons depots in the eastern part of the Czech Republic, which caused extensive damage and the death of two local residents. Only six and a half years later, the leadership of the Czech government officially accused Russia of organizing this sabotage.

In this regard, Prague expelled 18 Russian diplomats, and Russia, in response, declared 20 employees of the Czech Embassy in Moscow as persona non grata. The Czech Republic then announced that it was expelling around 70 more Russian embassy staff. Several EU countries joined the expulsion of Russian diplomats in solidarity with the Czech Republic.