A GRU officer operating undercover as an Aeroflot employee in Tokyo is procuring dual-use technologies for Russia's war in Ukraine, according to Western intelligence sources cited by The New York Times. The investigation, conducted jointly with The Japan Times, details the activities of the GRU's secret 20th Directorate, whose officers pose as diplomats or businessmen to smuggle military technology.
The Tokyo operation is overseen by 49-year-old Maxim Vladimirovich Filchenkov, who has been in Japan since February 2024 under the guise of an Aeroflot employee, the report says. Filchenkov has been building ties with logistics companies that ship goods from Japan to Russia. The Insider confirmed Filchenkov's GRU affiliation: he was previously registered at the address of a dormitory of the GRU's Military Diplomatic Academy, where Anatoly Chepiga (also known as Ruslan Boshirov) — the man convicted of poisoning Sergei Skripal with Novichok — also lived. Filchenkov's car was also spotted near GRU headquarters on Khoroshevskoye Highway in Moscow.
Filchenkov arrived in Tokyo in February 2024, when Russian forces were acutely short of high-tech components after sanctions were imposed. According to NYT sources, he actively established contacts with logistics companies through which the GRU could acquire sensitive technologies under false pretenses and export them via third countries, sometimes using forged shipping documents.
One of Aeroflot's partners in Japan is Proco Air, which calls itself a 'bridge between Japan and Russia.' It leases space on cargo flights to countries where Aeroflot continues to fly, particularly Sri Lanka and Uzbekistan, where goods are transferred to Russian airline planes. While the scheme itself is not illegal, Western intelligence officials say the logistics routes are key to the GRU's 20th Directorate operations.
Proco Air owner Takehiko Miki told NYT that he met Filchenkov around 2018 and began actively cooperating with him after Filchenkov returned to Tokyo in 2024. According to the newspaper's sources, Miki later asked a Chinese partner — introduced by Filchenkov — to help ship goods banned for export to Russia. Miki denies knowing about Filchenkov's intelligence ties or attempting to transport prohibited products, and claims Proco Air only delivers permitted goods — mainly medical equipment and cosmetics. As evidence, he showed journalists an air waybill for medical equipment shipped via Sri Lanka to Moscow pharmaceutical company R-Pharm, whose founder Alexei Repik is under sanctions from the UK, Australia, and Canada for his ties to Putin.
Japan is the world's largest exporter of sensitive dual-use technologies that interest Russian authorities, NYT notes. Vietnam has become the main destination for such exports and simultaneously the largest supplier of sensitive technologies to Russia. Ukrainian authorities estimate that Japanese components are present in 90% of Russian missiles and drones. After a Russian strike on a residential building in Kyiv in May that killed at least 24 people, investigators found Japanese parts in the guidance system of a Kh-101 cruise missile. In April 2025 alone, Ukraine sent at least eight diplomatic notes to Japan's Foreign Ministry warning about the use of Japanese electronics in Russian weapons.
Weak espionage laws and a thriving high-tech industry have turned Japan into a key hub for Russian operations after Western countries expelled hundreds of Russian agents, NYT notes.