The Russian delegation to the negotiations in Abu Dhabi included FSB officer Dmitry Miniev, whom Ukraine accused of attempting to assassinate Budanov. His unit has been monitored by senior US officials in Russia for years.
As previously reported by RIA Novosti, the Russian delegation at the tripartite negotiations in Abu Dhabi is represented by five members of the delegation and six experts.
Four of them are participating in such negotiations for the first time, the agency noted. These are Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and the head of the FSB's operational information and international relations service Alexey Komkov (members of the delegation), as well as the head of the counterintelligence operations department of the FSB Dmitry Miniev and the director of the non-proliferation and arms control department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Operleg Postnikov.
Dmitry Miniev is the head of the counterintelligence operations department of the FSB (DKRO). He was the subject of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich's first story after he was released from prison in Russia as a result of the exchange.
According to the WSJ, this FSB unit has been following senior US officials in Russia and foreign journalists for years. The department led Gershkovich's arrest and was also involved in the arrest in Russia of former Marines Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed. Miniev was one of those accompanying the prisoners that Russia was supposed to transfer on August 1, 2024 as part of the exchange, Gershkovich said.
Here is what the journalist wrote about him:
Dressed in a sand-colored jacket and brown boots, with a gray goatee, the man spent several hours making final preparations for the largest East-West prisoner exchange since the Cold War. Now, as the pilots started the engines to fly to the airport in the Turkish capital, he went out to look at the 16 prisoners he escorted to freedom - Americans, Russians and Germans, who had just been released from prisons and penal colonies.