The ‘family-run’ Greek hotel… ‘that was also a hideout for Russian GRU killers’: Husband and wife owners paid £120 a night ‘while also hosting Moscow intelligence killers’

A family-run hotel on the Greek coast is believed to be an alleged haven for the infamous Russian spy agency GRU, whose agents have carried out bombings and poisonings across Europe.

Villa Elena in Frama, on the Chalkidiki Peninsula, overlooks the sparkling Aegean Sea and is complete with an outdoor pool and large private garden, and costs £120 per night.

Named after owner Elena Saposnikov, who ran it with her husband Nikolay, the three-storey pile seems modest and is still listed on holiday booking sites.

But for the past 15 years, the building has housed members of GRU Unit 29155, the Kremlin’s “most skilled assassination and sabotage team,” according to an investigation by the Moscow-sanctioned platform. The initiate.

The group was behind attacks on NATO territory, including the Salisbury poisonings and the deadly explosions in the Czech Republic, and the husband and wife team who allegedly hosted the operatives were said to have supported some of its activities.

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 bombing

General Andrei Averyanov, the commander of the elite intelligence unit and a close ally of Vladimir Putin, is said to have had direct contact with the couple, with telephone records even indicating that he stayed at their hotel.

Elena was said to have been the boss in the husband-and-wife operation, and was reportedly considered such a valuable asset to Moscow that Putin himself awarded her one of the highest honors, the Hero of the Russian Federation Medal.

The Saposnikovs, both born in the former Soviet Union, were granted 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 applications were “littered with omissions, misrepresentations and falsifications,” according to The Insider, with claims that they had been approved by corrupt Czech officials.

Nikolay, a former Soviet soldier, was subsequently investigated by Czech authorities over his job at an arms company, with claims that his modest salary was insufficient to cover the couple’s lavish lifestyle.

Nevertheless, in 2009 they bought their sprawling luxury villa in Halkidiki for £235,000, left the Czech Republic and moved a year later.

Elena, whose family is from Kiev, told investigators she had financed the purchase ‘with money from my parents’, who were said to be in their 70s and living on a pension of less than £250 a month.

They started running it as a hotel in 2010, and although sites such as TripAdvisor and Booking.com contain links to the property, dates are not publicly bookable.

The couple bought the sprawling three-storey villa in Halkidiki in 2009 for £235,000.

A photo from TripAdvisor is believed to show the inside of the Halkidiki hotel

Meanwhile, four GRU members are said to have stayed at the hotel between 2012 and 2018.

The owners are also said to have assisted the unit in its activities, including on NATO territory in the Czech Republic. The Insider says that the Šapošnikov family are the first “illegals” directly linked to unit 29155.

“Illegals” is a term for Russian sleeper agents who live abroad as naturalized citizens while secretly carrying out the Kremlin’s orders abroad.

The family is said to have helped agents Alexander Mishkin and Anatoliy Chepiga to infiltrate two government-run warehouses in the Czech Republic in October 2014 and plant explosives there.

Czech intelligence and media said the agents were the same ones suspected of poisoning former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, England, in 2018 – Anatoliy Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin (photo)

Two months later, another explosion occurred near the eastern village of Vrbetice. The explosions killed two workers 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 Novichok nerve agent that they had thrown away.

Czech authorities announced in 2021 that they had received evidence of Russian involvement in the Czech explosions and expelled 18 Russian diplomats from the country.

Moscow later labeled the Czech Republic as “an unfriendly state” that “has taken unfriendly 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 bombing, calling on Greek authorities to question them.

The couple reportedly responded to the accusations, claiming that they were being persecuted because of their Russian roots and being used as “scapegoats in the name of unknown interests.”

Although they admitted to Czech investigators that the men identified as GRU agents had stayed at their hotel, they did not know they had worked for Moscow’s military intelligence.

Nikolay died of a heart attack in Greece in February at the age of 62 Inside story reports, while Greece has yet to decide whether Elena can be extradited to the Czech Republic.