Is Anatoliy Tymoshchuk a secret agent in the pay of Russia?

• Ex-glory of Ukrainian football and holder of the selections record, Tymoshchuk is now part of ancient history.

  Or is no longer part of the story at all.

• In question, his deafening silence after the invasion of his country by Vladimir Putin's Russia.

• Still under contract with Zenit Saint Petersburg, he is even accused of high treason by his former personal secretary.

  20 Minutes

  conducted the investigation.

"Silence is a confession", wrote the Greek tragic poet Euripides.

This adage, the former glory of Ukrainian football Anatoliy Tymoshchuk, record holder for the number of selections (144) ahead of the immense Andrei Shevchenko, has learned it the hard way in recent days.

Having chosen not to publicly take sides against the Russian invasion of Ukraine and to keep his position as assistant coach at Zenit Saint-Petersburg (Russian club close to Putin), the native of Lutsk, a city in the west of the country bombed on the 17th day of the war, has become an enemy of the fatherland in the eyes of Ukrainian public opinion.

To the point of pushing the Federation to simply strike him out of its history books and remove him from the official register of national team players.

To measure the thing, it is as if with us the FFF was trying to erase Thierry Henry or Laurent Blanc from collective memory.

The winner of the 2013 Champions League with Bayern is accused of having made a pact with the enemy by playing double agents in the pay of Russia.

A crime that is neither more nor less than high treason and which could cost him a little more than a name crossed out in the federated software.

A swearing oath of allegiance

Indeed, the former personal secretary / agent / friend of "Tymo", Vitaliy Yurchenko, published on his Facebook page top secret documents dated 2012 and possibly signed by the hand of the former international.

Documents bearing the official stamp of the Kremlin, signed with the double-headed eagle and the coat of arms of the Russian intelligence services (the FSB), in which the player takes an oath.

“I, Anatoliy Timoshchuk, swear allegiance to the people of the Russian Federation.

I swear to faithfully carry out the orders of my superiors and to carry out the tasks entrusted to me (…), to provide access to Category A information to the Russian Federation (…) and to promote mutually beneficial cooperation and long-term.

I swear to be an honest, courageous and vigilant employee, and to keep state secrets.

»

TYMOSHCHUK IS AN FSB AGENT?

🤯

Investigative journalist Kostyantin Andriyuk has just shared the alleged following info:

About 4 years ago, during the first news about the divorce, KA received an interesting message with 5 photos from an unknown addressee.

Documents from 2012 pic.twitter.com/SOu7c1cGdo

— Zorya Londonsk (@ZoryaLondonsk) March 10, 2022

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Contacted by

, Vitaliy Yurchenko said he received his documents by email four years ago - two years after the end of his collaboration with Tymoshchuk - when he was entangled in a complicated divorce with his ex-wife .

If he does not exclude that the source who leaked these documents is linked to this case, Yurchenko admits that he cannot guarantee their authenticity.

“What I say, on the other hand, for having assisted him for 12 years and managed a good part of his contracts, is that it is indeed his signature.

I even compared it with the original that I had on other administrative papers, they are the same.

After that, it's not a proof in itself.

I only note that since the publication of the documents, he has not called me to defend himself.

Nor has he denied anything officially.

»

Ex-KGB spy Sergei Jirnov is not buying history

Not having been able to have access to these documents, we contacted a former agent of the Russian secret services to submit to him the photos of Yurchenko.

Eye of Moscow and the KGB in France during the Cold War, Sergei Jirnov considers this case "very suspicious".

“I noted one or two spelling mistakes, it seems that the person who wrote this is not Russian but Ukrainian, he dissects.

Afterwards, in the KGB at the time and in the FSB today, it can happen that there are mistakes in the documents.

The FSB is not the French Academy either!

".

The author of

, at Paperback, also noted another inconsistency: "When you become an FSB agent, you receive your operational pseudonym from 'secret agent.

However, in this document, at no time did I see a pseudonym.

This seems to me to be a document that is not done according to the rules of the art.

“If he admits that practices may have changed since the time he officiated for the KGB, Sergei Jirnov also confirms that this type of “solemn oath is what is done in this kind of situation.

“I myself signed a statement of this style,” he adds.

Tymoshchuk, a prime target for the FSB?

In the midst of the war, Jirnov had no doubt that “the Russian secret services were working actively and very aggressively in Ukraine”.

He wonders however: “When the FSB recruits an agent, it is to have access to secret information.

Did Tymoshchuk have such information or was in contact with people who did?

"Since I published these documents, many people ask me this question," explains Yurchenko.

It seems pretty clear to me: he has direct access to all Ukrainian personalities, whether they are big business leaders or politicians.

It's not always easy to get access to these personalities, but I can assure you that when Tymoshchuk calls, they answer.

»

Expected for a time to become the vice-president of the Fed, was the former captain of 

targeted by Russia because of his privileged position in the sporting and political mysteries of his country?

“If I weren't sure of his links with the Russian authorities, I would never have published these documents, assures Yurchenko.

I know that he had contacts with the so-called “Siloviki” [the regime's stalwarts], and not just public contacts, but personal contacts.

He never hid it.

And his drivers in St. Petersburg were OMON [internal ministry special forces units] soldiers.”

“We see who Anatoliy Tymoshchuk really is”

Close to the player to the point of considering him a personal friend (before completely cutting ties with him), the Ukrainian sports journalist Kostyantyn Andryuk also abounds in this direction.

During a report in Russia in the fall of 2014, in the midst of the Donbass war, he spent time with Tymoshchuk, who then served as an intermediary to approach high-placed political figures.

He tells :

“During these three days, I was able to realize how much he had changed.

He had a pro-Russian rhetoric and kept telling me that he knew a lot of good people there, and in particular FSB colonels, with whom he was very close.

He boasted of being untouchable and of receiving a lot of money via Zenit and Gazprom.

At the time, I played the game. Without him, I would not have been able to reach certain people.

When I got back to Kyv, I said to myself that he was no longer the man I had known in the past.

»

At the same time, as he tries to convince Tymoshchuk to use his notoriety to convey messages of peace and to "financially support the Ukrainian army and the victims of the war in the Donbass", Yurchenko can only see the player's lack of interest in the national cause.

“As far as I know, his family made some donations to Ukrainian soldiers but he wasn't very involved in that.

It was also around this time that he stopped flying the Ukrainian flag during his club victories, as he used to do until then.

I never understood why.

Today I see it more clearly... From a moral, human point of view, if you keep quiet when bombs and missiles fall on your country, where your friends, your family and your fans live, then you you are a traitor.

".

On the phone from Kiyv, where he has chosen to stay to continue his work as a journalist, Andryuk's voice is tired after “another day of bombardments”.

Thoughtful, he also struggles to understand the attitude of his former friend.

“In addition he comes from Lutsk, a region in the west where the proximity with the Russians is non-existent… That's how it is.

War reveals true personalities.

The masks are falling off and today we see who Anatoliy Tymoshchuk really is.

A legend passed to the enemy. 

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