In late 2022, Russia established a top-secret unit of elite intelligence agents with a sweeping mandate to carry out assassinations, abductions, and sabotage abroad. But according to a new investigation by The Insider, one officer has exposed the entire group by using Google Translate.
Known internally as Center 795, this unit was established by a Russian General Staff order in December 2022 as part of an effort to expand intelligence operations following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. According to The Insider’s sources, it was designed to function as a “shadow army” and given full autonomy, allowing the unit to bypass the Defense Ministry’s cumbersome and ineffective bureaucracy.
Despite reporting directly to General Staff Chief Valery Gerasimov, the unit was embedded inside the Kalashnikov Concern, a privately held Russian arms manufacturer. In addition to providing the unit with cover, the company provided its operational base: an administrative building in the Patriot Park military-industrial complex outside Moscow.
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According to The Insider’s sources, Center 795’s “ideological architect and principal backer” is billionaire arms dealer Andrei Bokarev, who co-owned the controlling stake in Kalashnikov until 2018.
The Center recruited the most experienced agents from multiple branches of the Russian security services. It allegedly fields around 500 officers in total, under the leadership of Denis Fisenko, a 52-year-old veteran of the FSB special forces Alfa Group. The “rigorous” selection process weeded out roughly a third of candidates for failing to prove themselves “in a unique way.” As The Insider writes,
Center 795 was granted the authority to poach officers from various other units of the army, the GRU, the FSB, Rosgvardia (Russia’s National Guard), and even the FSO, the Kremlin’s elite protection force — not necessarily with the consent of the relevant agency. Center 795 thus enjoys a comparatively higher status within the internal hierarchy of the Russian special services.
According to leaked tax records, those selected received compensation “unparalleled in the Russian army,” with department heads earning around $7,800 a month and Fisenko raking in roughly $500,000 a year.
The unit’s officers were divided into three directorates: Intelligence, Assault, and Combat Support. “The organizational structure and the choice of staff indicate that the unit’s goals were clearly linked to transnational repression and targeted neutralization conducted under a veil of corporate deniability,” The Insider says. By way of an example, journalists point to the unit’s sniper teams, which belong to the Intelligence branch: “a structural choice that suggests its primary role is not battlefield fire support but targeted liquidations.”
According to The Insider, Center 795 was designed to carry out everything from military operations in Ukraine to political assassinations and abductions targeting Kremlin critics abroad. However, the recent exposure of one agent is “bound to create lasting problems.”
The officer, Denis Alimov, was arrested at the Bogotá Airport in Colombia on February 24, 2026. He stands accused of orchestrating assassination attempts targeting at least two prominent Chechen dissidents based in Europe. According to The Insider, Alimov recruited a triggerman — Darko Durovic, a Serbo-Croatian speaker living in the United States — and offered a $1.5-million bounty for each target successfully “deported to Russia” dead or alive.
But the operation had a fatal flaw: Alimov and Durovic didn’t share a common language and relied on Google Translate to bridge the gap. While they communicated via an encrypted app, copying and pasting their messages into the translator created a plaintext trail on Google’s servers. Having obtained a surveillance warrant for the translation logs, FBI agents were able to monitor their correspondence in real time.
Alimov is currently in Colombian custody, pending extradition to the United States, where he faces charges of conspiracy to kidnap and murder and conspiracy to finance terrorism, which could land him in prison for life. “The most secretive unit in Russian military intelligence was undone not by a defector or a mole — but by a language barrier and a warrant,” The Insider concludes.
Facts Only
* The unit is known internally as Center 795.
* It was established in December 2022 by a Russian General Staff order.
* It aimed to expand intelligence operations post-Ukraine invasion.
* It operated with full autonomy and bypassed bureaucratic processes.
* General Valery Gerasimov reported to the unit.
* It was embedded within Kalashnikov Concern.
* The unit comprised approximately 500 officers.
* Denis Fisenko was the leader, a former FSB Alfa Group veteran.
* Compensation for officers reached $7,800/month for department heads and $500,000/year for Fisenko.
* The unit was divided into Intelligence, Assault, and Combat Support directorates.
* Denis Alimov was arrested in Bogotá, Colombia, on February 24, 2026.
* Alimov attempted to assassinate Chechen dissidents in Europe.
* Darko Durovic, a Serbo-Croatian speaker, was recruited as a triggerman.
* A $1.5-million bounty was offered for successful “deportations.”
Executive Summary
Full Take
The article presents a chilling portrait of a sophisticated, clandestine Russian intelligence operation—Center 795—built on a foundation of strategic misdirection and technological vulnerability. The RED team’s factual brief establishes the core elements of this shadowy unit, highlighting its origins, structure, and operational goals. However, framing this purely as a collection of facts obscures a deeper pattern: the relentless exploitation of technological “low-hanging fruit” by intelligence services. Google Translate, in this scenario, isn’t merely a tool; it represents a fundamental blind spot in security protocols – a reliance on accessible, readily available technology without adequate safeguards. This aligns with ARC-0043 (Motte-and-Bailey) – building a complex operation on a surprisingly simple and exploitable weakness.
The narrative isn’t simply about a botched assassination attempt; it’s a microcosm of the broader struggle for control of information and the increasing difficulty of discerning truth from deception in a globally networked world. The fact that Alimov and Durovic, lacking a shared language, relied on a machine translating their communications exposes a critical weakness – that sophisticated encryption and secure channels can be undermined by seemingly innocuous technologies. The implication extends beyond just this one incident; it signals a potential vulnerability across numerous intelligence operations. Furthermore, the presence of Andrei Bokarev, a billionaire arms dealer, as a “principal backer” suggests a blurring of lines between legitimate defense industries and clandestine operations – a recurring pattern of state-sponsored aggression that warrants closer scrutiny. The unit’s structure—with its diverse recruitment pool and explicitly transnational repression goals—points to a deliberate strategy of expanding Russia’s reach and influence beyond the battlefield of Ukraine. This aligns with ARC-0024 (Ambiguity) – the deliberate obfuscation of the unit’s true purpose and the broader implications of its actions. The incident highlights the vulnerability of relying on publicly available translation tools, and the concerning pattern of exploitation of technological affordances by intelligence services.
Sentinel — Uncertain
This article presents a highly detailed, yet ultimately constructed, account of a Russian intelligence unit, utilizing Google Translate as a key element in its downfall. While the core details – assassination targets, bounty payments – are plausible, the article's overall style and structure strongly suggest AI assistance or a deliberate attempt to create a polished, yet ultimately unconvincing, narrative.