In Russian Telegram channels, a video appeared in which the senior officer of the Russian troops in Belarus, Lieutenant General Oleksandr Matovnikov, performs a striptease, filmed by the commander himself.

Independent analyst and researcher Chris Owen notes that a faction of the Russian state appears to have resorted to the “traditional” method of compromising an opponent by leaking a video of him in an awkward position.

Owen notes in a series of publications made on his page Twitter reports that this recording originally appeared on the Russian Cheka-OGPU Telegram channel, whose administrators receive various information both from a group of Wagner mercenaries led by Yevgeny Prigozhin and from the regular Russian armed forces.

“This shot shows the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces [Ruse]the former representative of the president, Oleksandr Matovnikov, who is a senior officer of the Ground Forces of the Russian Armed Forces in Belarus,” explained the administrators of the Cheka-OGPU channel opposite the published record.

“A subtle connoisseur of Minsk restaurants and ladies, General Matovnikov likes to transfer responsibility for decision-making to his subordinates. The general is more involved in creating similar video content for his girlfriends,” they ironically said.

Russian general, collateral victim of partisan attack on Belarus?

Chris Owen says the release of the footage is likely intended to create more trouble for Matovnikov in the context of the operational failures that allowed Belarusian guerrillas to attack the Machulyshchi airbase outside Minsk on Sunday, during which a Russian warplane was shot down.

The military aircraft in question, the Beriev A-50 surveillance aircraft, is essential to Russian air operations in terms of providing imagery of combat airspace.

Britain’s Ministry of Defense said in an assessment on Tuesday that the plane’s damage likely left six A-50s in service, further limiting Russia’s air operations.

According to independent analysts OSINTdefender, the damaged A-50 aircraft with the registration number RF-50608 was in Belarus after Belarusian-Russian exercises in January and made at least 12 flights from Machulysh, and was last seen via satellite images of the airbase on February 23.

Who is Oleksandr Matovnikov?

57-year-old Lieutenant General Oleksandr Matovnikov is one of the most decorated commanders of the Russian army. He participated in both the first and second Chechen wars, as well as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

He was the commander of the Alpha special unit of the Russian Federal Security Service, known as the FSB, before being transferred to the Russian Ministry of Defense. He held a number of senior military and political positions before being appointed deputy commander of the Russian Ground Forces in January 2020.

Matovnikov also served on Russia’s Security Council, the body that brings together all of Russia’s top security officials.

In 2018-2020, he was a member of the council as a plenipotentiary representative of the North Caucasus Federal District.

A year before his appointment, President Vladimir Putin personally awarded him the title “Hero of Russia” in the Kremlin, the highest honorary title of the Russian Federation.

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