Military Drones, Incendiary Devices: How Russian Trainers Taught Subversion at Balkan Camps

Two trials have been completed so far. In March, a Moldovan court gave two men, Ion Chirita and Nikita Sirenko, suspended prison sentences of three and three-and-a-half years.

A month earlier, a court sentenced training participant Aliona Gotco to four years and one month in prison, Ludmila Costenco to four years and Vladimir Harcevnicov to five years and four months. All three have been on the run since they failed to appear in court for the verdict in February.

The verdict state that the camp was located near the settlement of Glamocani, not far from Banja Luka. According to the March ruling, Russian instructors using the aliases Grigore and Alexandru sent the camp participants to do a practical exercise in Banja Luka, where they were tasked with locating various diplomatic and administrative buildings.

They were given phones with instructions to upload coordinates of locations of interest to a special application and to document multiple sites that could serve as drone take-off locations.

“They gave us certain instructions, for example: ‘You two go to Bosnia to photograph the US embassy from all sides, but so that you are not detected; you two go to Croatia and photograph the Russian or Moldovan embassy, whatever comes to mind,’ or: ‘You go to Belgrade to photograph the Czech embassy,’” recalled one participant who spoke to BIRN on condition of anonymity.

The training also included the preparation of incendiary devices, according to the court ruling.

Military drone training

At the training camp, the participants slept in tents and were trained to break through police cordons and manoeuvre drone controls so they could drop explosive devices.

“They had drones that were not for play, but military use,” a camp participant told BIRN in Chisinau.

He added that the instructors were worried about being discovered, as each drone was worth between 3,000 and 5,000 euros.

A source close to the investigation provided BIRN with photographs of pages from a notebook handwritten in Russian that was allegedly found in the possession of Costenco, Gotco and Harcevnicov at the time of their arrest. It contains instructions for drone operator training and sabotage.

On one page, headed “Recipes”, there were instructions on how to concoct incendiary materials. Another page details the “code of honour of a Russian officer”, including the main principle: “Do no harm!!! (to yourself, to citizens).” The page also includes the warning: “Be prepared for everything to go wrong.”

According to a source close to the investigation, who asked to remain anonymous, Costenco, Gotco and Harcevnicov were given a manual entitled Russian Cuisine: The ABC of Homemade Terrorism. The manual, which is several hundred pages long and written in Russian, provides instructions for making explosives and poisons from legally available ingredients. Written by unknown authors, it is banned in Russia.

BIRN was unable to independently confirm claims that participants actually used the book. Gotco declined to speak with BIRN, while Costenco and Harcevnicov did not respond to messages sent via Facebook.

Russian trainers’ true identities unknown

At least three groups of Moldovans, consisting of five to 12 people each, passed through the camp in Bosnia and Herzegovina between July and early September 2024. The participants were reportedly paid between 450 and 800 euros.

Moldovan prosecutor Dumitru Stefarta explained to BIRN that camp participants arrived in Bosnia and Herzegovina via Romania and Serbia.

“It has been established that they stayed specifically in mountainous and forested areas,” Stefarta said.

The court rulings reveal that the instructors were Russians who identified themselves by aliases such as Alexandr, Gosa and Bata. Their true identities remain unknown.

The camp in Bosnia and Herzegovina was moved to Serbia after someone from a previous group that trained there revealed its location to the  authorities, a camp participant told BIRN during an interview in Moldova.

Two of the participants who were convicted in Moldova – Gotco and Harcevnicov – can be seen at a property in the village of Radenka in eastern Serbia in drone footage that BIRN obtained from a source close to the investigation. Serbian police searched the property in October 2024 and found equipment used by camp participants.

Social media posts by the defendants also highlighted when they were in Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia.

Gotco published a post that revealed she was in a café in Banja Luka in August 2024, while Liudmila Costenco posted a series of photos from Belgrade on the same day. In the following weeks, Costenco posted photos from the Romanian city of Iasi, located near Moldovan border, the Tumane Monastery in eastern Serbia and a petrol station in Croatia, then in September again from Serbia.

During court proceedings in Moldova, Costenco claimed that she had been in the Balkans as a tourist.

The Bosnian state prosecutor’s office confirmed to BIRN that a case regarding the camp has been opened and that Moldova has shared its findings with the Sarajevo-based prosecution. However, no indictments have yet been issued in Bosnia and Herzegovina.