“At 5 he came Putin’s emissaryOn October 26, 2017, Víctor Terradellas, former secretary of international relations for Convergència, sent this WhatsApp message to his friend Carles Puigdemont, then president of the Generalitat. Those days the meetings took place in the Palau de la Generalitat. nerves were on edge. After 1-O, the Catalan president hesitated between summoning regional elections or opt for unilateral declaration of independence (DUI), which was finally proclaimed by Parliament the following day, October 27. Terradellas insisted: “We are at the door of Palau. You must welcome us.” Then, Puigdemont accepted: “Go up to Canonges [la residencia oficial del ‘president’]”.
Who was that emissary? A joint investigation by EL PERIÓDICO and the media OCCRP, Bellingcat, Irpimedia (Italy), Istories (Russia) and Il Fatto Quotidiano has confirmed that on October 26 he traveled to Barcelona in the Aeroflot Flight 2514 from Moscow Nikolay Sadovnikov, 64, a mysterious former Russian diplomat and hypothetical businessman. He arrived at El Prat airport at 3:44 p.m. and left Catalonia days later.
This Russian citizen, your compatriot Sergey Motinthe Catalan Jordi Sardà Bonvehi (involved in an alleged scam with a sale of gas to Ukraine) held a meeting with Puigdemont at the House of the Canonges. This is confirmed by Terradellas, who participated in the meeting, in which, according to his version, they offered the then Catalan president economic aid of millions of dollars and, supposedly, also military aid (some 10,000 soldiers). In exchange, the Russians demanded favorable legislation to launch a cryptocurrency system in an independent Catalonia and create a great world niche of virtual currency. This newspaper unsuccessfully tried to obtain Puigdemont’s version of this meeting.
Sadovnikov, who has been photographically recognized by a person who had a relationship with him in the Catalan capital, was presented as the “envoy” of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. In the end, nothing materialized, but the contacts continued. Barcelona judge Joaquín Aguirre will interrogate Terradellas this Wednesday to find out about the activities of his foundation, CatMon and his contacts with Russia.
Sadovnikov has an experience in the diplomatic world. He served for the Soviet Union in Rome from 1984 to 1987 and then was deputy consul in Milan from 1991 to at least 1995, first for the USSR and then for Russia. According to the records of Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, his name appears as an adviser in a foreign policy planning department in 2007 and rubbed shoulders with members of the Duma. In addition, he was active in the ministry for several years. In 2012, he was on the radar of at least one Western intelligence agency. Pier Giorgio Bassi, an Italian who acted as guarantor of a visa Sadovnikov applied for in January 2016, maintains that Sadovnikov left the Russian Foreign Ministry “around 2018.” In 2016 and 2017, he recalled, he was an advisor to the mystery and “had an important role in the foreign policy strategy,” especially the European one. He thinks he remembers that he then analyzed the situation in Spain and Catalonia.
The “unofficial” middleman
On two occasions, journalists involved in this investigation have been able to read and take notes from a secret service report detailing that Sadovnikov was known as a “informal broker from Moscow” in Syria and Iran, where “it has seen its role consolidated and extended”. Although he acted under the umbrella of the Foreign Ministry, he “is accountable only to the head of state”, with whom he “claims a certain proximity”, he stresses. Sadovnikov, he adds, “is involved” in the affairs of Syria, Iran, Libya and, in general, “in bilateral relations with the Gulf countries.” His goal was “to promote the convergence of interests between Russia and Iran, especially to reduce American influence in the region.” He mentions a trip to Iran in April 2012 and another the following month to the United Arab Emirates, where he accompanied the foreign minister. Sergei Lavrov.
In parallel, Sadovnikov was related to five companies in Russia. All of them were registered at number 5 of the Red square of moscu. Until the year 2000, this complex was listed in the inventory of the Russian Defense Ministry; in 2009, it was given to the FSO (Federal Protective Service), and in 2012 it was given to the Kremlin museums. These societies had similar patterns.
Sadovnikov was also a partner in a Russian investment projects company together with Larissa Contia woman who presents herself as a spokesperson for the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (Ukrainian region occupied by Russia), according to the data of the aforementioned company, although it has denied it. He was also director of Onava Energyfirm registered in Panama, associated with Antonio Mario Angotti Y Ottavio Antonio Angotticonvicted in the United States of fraud.
How do I arrive Sadovnikov to see Puigdemont? It was through Terradellas, but with the intermediation of Sardà Bonvehí. In that circle is another mysterious Russian: Sergey Mutiny, who stopped paying the bill for his stay at the Diagonal Clinic in Barcelona and who later died of cancer. A few days before the meeting at the Casa dels Canonges, another with Puigdemont had taken place, but then the only Russian who attended was Motin.
Terradellas, according to his cell phone messages, acknowledged the possibility that they were part of the Russian mafia. “I already believe that they are gangsters. Or where is the difference between mafia and political power? Normally they don’t go out (…) Now she was talking to Carles [Puigdemont]. It’s all weird but… and they tell us that with what they offer us we can pay the spanish debt? Weird? A lot,” she wrote in a message.
“You are Nicolay’s team”
In 2018, Terradellas, through Sardà Bonvehí, continued to maintain contact with Sadovnikov. “Nikolay already told you. [Putin] it is a structure, not a person”, Sardà wrote to Terradellas in March of that year. The latter replied: “Yes, one more piece of the gear that you are the Nicola’s team“. The messages hint at more meetings with Sadovnikov.
During those months, according to the messages from Terradellas, a money transfer (via bitcoin) that the Russians were willing to contribute. To prove that the money he was promised was real, Sardà Bonvehí gave Terradellas what appears to be a supposed securities certificate worth of €500 billion, which has been verified to be false. “The document is one hundred percent fake. Such forgeries are often used in scams where people want to brag that they control such assets. And the forgery is done very clumsily,” he says. Daniel Thelesklafformer head of the Swiss Money Laundering Complaint and Communication Office.
Confirmation of stay in Barcelona
In a telephone conversation, Sadovnikov has confirmed that he traveled to Barcelona around that time. “I really don’t know who I met because I don’t speak Spanish. The comrade I went with [posiblemente Sardà Bonvehí] took me somewhere. But believe me, I don’t know who I met or the names of those people. Besides, I was never interested in Catalonia and I was only visiting a friend“, he assured.
And he specified: “I have nothing to do with politics, the economy or events in Catalonia“. In this sense, he argued that “the integrity of Spainlike that of Russia, is an indisputable fact”. He admitted that he heard in that meeting the promises that were made about economic and military aid, although, in his opinion, everything could be a deception.
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“I sat and waited for it to be over,” he remembers. And he maintains: “I have never worked for the russian governmentRegarding his companies, he first denied their existence, although he later confessed that in 2000 he discovered on the internet that his passport had been used to create one or two companies without his knowledge. He was offered to show Puigdemont’s photo, but Sadovnikov argued that I had lost memory after having covid.
Christopher Nehring, a German intelligence expert and professor at the University of Potsdam, highlights the strange dual nature of these Russian contacts. On the one hand, “it obviously has a relationship with the Russian intelligence services“. On the other, “the alleged demand to turn Catalonia into the Switzerland of cryptocurrencies sounds like business scam“. “It seems that we are before a undercover support backed by intelligence and with a component of fraud or fraud”. “This has all the symptoms of being a mixed operation between political interference Y profit motive“, highlights another of the experts consulted on Russian affairs, the British Keir Giles.