AnewZ: Cyberwarfare — How Russia’s military intelligence attacked Azerbaijan

Azerbaijani AnewZ TV channel has presented a story based on The Insider's investigation, which reveals details of a large-scale disinformation operation aimed, among other things, against Azerbaijan.

Recall that Caliber.Az had already reported on this case in a recent article, having analysed in detail how the fake campaign aimed at undermining Azerbaijan's international reputation was launched.

AnewZ has once again revisited the high-profile scandal of 2017, when Bulgarian journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva published a so-called “investigation” about alleged arms deliveries to conflict zones under the guise of diplomatic flights operated by the Azerbaijani airline Silk Way Airlines. Her report claimed that 350 such flights, protected by diplomatic immunity, allegedly transported weapons to Syria, Afghanistan, and Africa. The story quickly gained traction, picked up by WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, and pro-Kremlin media outlets.

However, it was later revealed that this so-called “sensation” had been fabricated as part of an operation by Unit 29155 of the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU). A fake Twitter account under the handle @anon_bg, created by intelligence operatives, posed as a “whistleblower” and, through private correspondence, provided Gaytandzhieva with forged documents.

As stated in the AnewZ report, the goal of the disinformation campaign was not only to discredit Azerbaijan as a supposed “tool of the West” in the Syrian war, but also to serve a broader informational operation — aimed at fueling anti-Western sentiment and diverting attention from the role of the Kremlin and the Assad regime in the Syrian conflict.

The authors of the investigation emphasise that direct contacts between Gaytandzhieva and representatives of the GRU were established as early as June 2017. According to their findings, the cooperation had already been ongoing for about a year by that time. This was not a case of journalistic error, but rather deliberate involvement in an operation orchestrated by one of the most secretive and dangerous units of Russian intelligence.

Later, after being dismissed from the Bulgarian newspaper Trud, Gaytandzhieva began collaborating with pro-Kremlin outlets, participated in events organised by the Russian Ministry of Defence, and promoted other disinformation narratives, including false claims about “U.S. biolabs” in Ukraine. In 2023, her name was added to the database of the Ukrainian platform Myrotvorets as a probable associate of Russian intelligence services.

The authors note that the campaign surrounding Silk Way Airlines became a striking example of the subtle and dangerous tactics of Russian propaganda, where disinformation was not presented as crude falsehoods but as a convincingly crafted narrative — complete with forged documents, fake sources, and real journalists.

AnewZ emphasises that the exposed scheme is not only a troubling warning for the journalistic community, but also an important lesson for states that are increasingly becoming targets of information warfare in the hybrid conflicts of the modern era.