A family-run hotel on the Greek coast is reported to be a suspected safe house for the notorious Russian spy agency GRU, whose agents have carried out bombings and poisonings across Europe.
Villa Elena in Frama, on the Halkidiki peninsula, overlooks the sparkling Aegean Sea and comes complete with an outdoor pool and large private garden, and costs £120 a night.
The three-story building, named after its owner Elena Saposnikov, who ran it with her husband Nikolay, looks modest and is still listed on vacation booking sites.
But for the past 15 years, the property has housed members of GRU Unit 29155, the Kremlin’s “most horribly accomplished assassination and sabotage squad,” according to an investigation by a Moscow-sanctioned platform. The inside.
The group has been behind attacks on NATO soil, including the Salisbury poisonings and deadly explosions in the Czech Republic, and the husband-and-wife team that allegedly harbored its agents is said to have been complicit in some of its activities.
Villa Elena in Frama, Halkidiki, overlooks the sparkling Aegean Sea and comes complete with an outdoor pool and large private garden.
Elena and Nikolay Saposnikov bought the hotel in 2009. He died this year of a heart attack.
Last year, Prague declared the Saposnikovs “persons of interest” in connection with the 2014 Vrbetice attack.
General Andrey Averyanov, commander of the elite intelligence unit and a close ally of Vladimir Putin, is reported to have been in direct contact with the couple, and phone data even suggests he stayed at their hotel.
Elena was said to be the head of the husband-and-wife operation and was reportedly considered such a valuable asset to Moscow that Putin himself awarded her one of his highest honors, the Hero of the Russian Federation medal.
Both born in the former Soviet Union, the Saposnikovs received political asylum in what was then Czechoslovakia in the early 1990s, before the collapse of the USSR, before becoming citizens of the Czech Republic.
Their citizenship application was “riddled with omissions, misrepresentations and falsifications,” according to The Insider, with claims that they were approved by corrupt Czech officials.
Nikolay, a former Soviet military officer, was investigated by Czech authorities for his work at an arms company, claiming that his modest salary was insufficient to cover the couple’s lavish lifestyle.
However, they bought their sprawling luxury villa in Halkidiki for £235,000 in 2009, left the Czech Republic and moved in a year later.
Elena, whose family hails from kyiv, told investigators she had financed the purchase “with money from my parents”, who were reportedly in their 70s and living on a pension of less than £250 a month.
They set out to run it as a hotel starting in 2010, and although sites like TripAdvisor and Booking.com contained links to the property, the dates cannot be booked publicly.
The couple bought the sprawling three-storey villa in Halkidiki for £235,000 in 2009.
A TripAdvisor image is believed to show the interior of the Halkidiki hotel.
Meanwhile, between 2012 and 2018, four GRU members allegedly stayed at the hotel.
Its owners are also said to have helped the unit in its activities, also on NATO territory in the Czech Republic. According to The Insider, the Šapošnikov family is the first “illegal” family directly related to unit 29155.
“Illegals” is a term for Russian sleeper agents who live as naturalized citizens in foreign countries while covertly carrying out the Kremlin’s orders abroad.
The family allegedly helped agents Alexander Mishkin and Anatoliy Chepiga infiltrate two government-run warehouses in the Czech Republic and plant explosives there in October 2014.
Czech intelligence and media said the agents were the same suspects in poisoning former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, England, in 2018: Anatoliy Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin (pictured).
Two months later, another explosion occurred near the eastern town of Vrbetice. Two workers were killed in the explosions and caused extensive damage.
Britain later accused Mishkin and Chepiga of carrying out the assassination attempt on former Russian agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in 2018.
He and his daughter Yulia survived, but a local woman, Dawn Sturgess, died after picking up a bottle of the Novichok nerve agent that had been discarded.
Czech authorities announced in 2021 that they had received evidence of Russian involvement in the Czech explosions and expelled 18 Russian diplomats.
Moscow subsequently called the Czech Republic “a hostile state” that has “carried out hostile actions” against Russia.
Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found together on a bench near Salisbury Cathedral on the afternoon of March 4 after being poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok.
And last year, Prague declared the Saposnikovs “persons of interest” in connection with the attack, asking Greek authorities to question them.
The couple reportedly responded to the allegations by claiming they were being persecuted due to their Russian roots and used as “scapegoats on behalf of unknown interests.”
While they admitted to Czech investigators that the men identified as GRU agents had stayed at their hotel, they did not know that they had been working for military intelligence in Moscow.
Nikolay died of a heart attack in Greece in February at the age of 62, Greek site Inside story reports, while Greece has not yet ruled on whether Elena can be extradited to the Czech Republic.