Silk Way Rally turns out to be a cover for Russia’s operations

Russia uses the Silk Way Rally, an international annual rally raid, for its own purposes, while their director Bulat Yanborisov regularly communicates with officers of the Russian special services.

Such conclusions were reached in the joint investigation of Bellingcat, Der Spiegel, Le Monde and The Insider.

The investigation says that the head of the Silkway Rally association, Bulat Yanborisov, has been given the Order of Alexander Nevsky by the deputy head of the GRU (Russian foreign military intelligence agency – ed.) Vladimir Alekseev, which is awarded “for personal courage and military merits”.

The Silk Way Rally was first held in 2009 as an off-road race between Kazan and Ashgabat (the capital of Turkmenistan). In 2016, the rally was already held from Moscow to Beijing, a year before Xi’an. The director of the Silk Road was Russian driver and multiple winner of the Dakar Rally Vladimir Chagin, his deputy was Frederic Lequien, who previously headed the Rally Dakar franchise.

In addition to promoting KAMAZ trucks (the main sponsor of the race) and strengthening relations with China, the rally, judging by internal documents, was also supposed to contribute to the Siberian Power 2 project and “ensure political stability in Mongolia”.

In another internal document, the Silk Way Rally is called a “universal platform for people’s diplomacy” and an instrument for rapprochement between Russia, China, Iran, Qatar, Afghanistan, Syria, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. Through the race, Russia planned to strengthen its position in the region, influence Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and offer the Taliban a “roadmap to international legitimacy” in exchange for recognizing the occupied Crimea as “Russian territory”.

Another internal document under the label of Top Secret contains a report by Bulat Yanborisov to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu for November 2021. It regards the military goals of the rally, in particular the opportunities for creating new military-political alliances, increasing the Russian military presence in the region, arms control and opening a new market for Russia’s military industry. At the same time, The Insider writes that so far the “only international success” of the race organizers is the Rally Road Racers cartoon, which attracted famous actors.

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Journalists at SilkwayRally are not aware whether Yanborisov had anything to do with organizing the race. At the same time, in 2022, he often communicated by phone with General Alekseev, who then spoke with Yanborisov’s adult son Amir, who also took part in the rally project and, according to the investigators, prepared reports to the Russian defense minister. Those communications became more active shortly before and in the first two months after the start of the full-scale invasion of Russia in Ukraine.

Yanborisov also spoke with at least 11 GRU staff, among whom may be the poisoners of the Skripals and the Bulgarian gunsmith Omelyan Gebrev and the perpetrators of explosions in military warehouses in the Czech Republic and Bulgaria. Another contact point of Yanborisov is the former commander of the Russian Special Operations Forces Oleg Martyanov, whom investigators call a “specialist in PMC work”.

The Insider notes that harsh sanctions against Russia and Russians did not affect Yanborisov, and after February 24, 2022 he actively traveled in Europe and Asia. He owns an apartment in a wealthy area of Paris, and journalists suggest that it may be used as a hawk for the GRU. Yanborisov also has a mansion in Bulgarian Sozopol. Judging by the detail of the phone of Denis Sergeyev, who led a group of GRU employees who had poisoned Gebrev, he was near Sozopol before the crime.

Investigators believe that the rally can be used by Russian special services when traveling to Central Asia and China, and Yanborisov’s apartments and companies – for the legal use of real estate and money in Europe.

In a conversation with journalists, Yanborisov denied his negotiations with General Alekseev and GRU officers. According to him, he received an Order for assistance in transporting medical equipment to combat COVID-19 in Russia from China for the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.