Who is Demuri Voronin? The German spy to whom Ivan Safronov passed the information? Political scientist? Consultant? What is known about him? The information that a German trace appeared in the treason case of the former journalist and employee of Roscosmos, 31-year-old Safronov, came as a surprise to observers in Germany. She did not cause a resonance. A few days after his lawyer Ivan Pavlov voiced new accusations from the investigation against Safronov in early November, not a single material on this topic was published in the German media. DW interviewed sources in Germany and Russia about him.
What is Voronin accused of
According to the investigation, according to Pavlov, Voronin allegedly received from Safronov some information about the Russian military in Syria in December 2015 and handed it over to the staff of the university in Zurich, Switzerland, as well as the German foreign intelligence service BND. For this Voronin allegedly paid Safronov a reward – $ 248.
BND building in Berlin
Voronin lives in Germany and was arrested during a visit to Russia in February 2021. According to Pavlov, he made a “confessionary statement.” He, like Safronov, is accused of treason. Both are being held in the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center in Moscow; both face up to 20 years in prison.
A little-known consultant with two names
If you believe the posts on social networks, Voronin is from Ukhta in the Komi Republic, he is 42 years old. With his last name, depending on the passport, he officially uses two names – the Georgian Demuri and the German Dieter (Dieter Woronin). Voronin has dual citizenship – Russia and Germany. The Federal Republic of Germany does not provide for dual citizenship, and exceptions are possible for refugees or displaced persons, for example, Russian Germans. There is no open data on how exactly Voronin got to Germany. This happened, according to the publication of one Russian tabloid, in the mid-1990s.
Lawyer Ivan Pavlov
Apparently, it is the name “Demuri” indicated in Voronin’s Russian passport. At least in the case file Voronin is called that, Pavlov said. The lawyer said that now many Russian journalists and political scientists with whom Voronin worked may be under attack. In turn, several well-known political scientists told DW that they had not heard anything about him before the criminal case against their colleague. On the website of the Russian Association for Public Relations (RASO) he is presented as “Dmitry Voronin”.
“I am not familiar with him. In life [Российской] associations [по связям с общественностью] he did not take part, – the president of RASO Evgeny Minchenko told DW. “As far as I know, even before my election as president of RASO, he was expelled for non-payment of membership fees.”
“A character unknown to almost anyone”
Another member of the RASO, political scientist Oleg Bondarenko, said that he also did not know the colleague accused of treason. According to him, the situation when a Russian expert conducts research for foreign think tanks is not unique. “Any foreign chamber of commerce has an analytical department with it, which consists mainly of Russian citizens,” the expert explains. “Representative offices of the largest German research centers order works from Russian experts.” From 2015 to 2019, Voronin headed the Russian firm Resost, which, among other things, was engaged in political consulting.
“I heard about Voronin from the investigating authorities,” said another well-known political scientist. “A character unknown to almost anyone.”
On the Xing social network, Demuri Voronin himself allegedly indicated that for three months – from September to November 2007 – he worked as a research officer at the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. His duties allegedly included an analysis of the activities of Russian trade missions in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
“According to the personnel department of our department, in the indicated years the citizen mentioned in your request did not work in the central office of the Ministry,” the press service of the Ministry of Economic Development replied to DW’s inquiry.
What was the student of Jena University remembered for?
From 2000 to 2008, Voronin studied political science at the University of Jena in Thuringia, as evidenced by a post on his LinkedIn account. At the university, a request to confirm the information about the former student was rejected, citing the protection of personal data.
Stefan Meister
The only person who personally knew Voronin at that time and whom DW managed to talk to was Stefan Meister, an expert on Eastern Europe at the German Society for Foreign Policy (DGAP). Meister said that in the mid-2000s he studied himself and then taught at the University of Jena. Voronin was his student. “He asked questions, actively participated in discussions, was very curious,” Meister recalls. According to him, he later crossed paths with Voronin in Berlin among experts on Eastern Europe and at forums.
The leading and oldest structure in Germany dealing with this topic is the German Association for Eastern European Studies (DGO). Voronin was one of more than 900 of its members – experts, journalists, diplomats. DGO executive director Gabriele Freitag, in response to an inquiry from DW, said that the association knows about Voronin’s case from the media, noting that he “never worked there.” “We know Mr. Voronin as a spotless person,” Freitag said, but declined to comment further.
“If I am not mistaken, he was interested in security issues and German-Russian relations,” says Stefan Meister. At the same time, the political scientist describes Voronin as a “wayward person”, a person who “is difficult to see to the end.”
At the University of Zurich, whose employees Voronin allegedly sent data from Safronov, DW was informed that they still did not know about this case, and that the university had no “documented” information about it. The German Bundestag, with which, according to Russian media, Voronin collaborated as a consultant, did not respond to DW’s request at the time of publication of the material. The German government is aware of the case against Voronin in Russia, the Foreign Ministry told DW, adding that “the embassy is trying to get consular access” to him.
How will Voronin’s case affect relations between Moscow and Berlin?
Russian planes in Syria, 2015
Political scientist Stefan Meister criticizes the lack of transparency in the process and says that the accusations against Safronov and Voronin sound “absurd” to him. He recalled that the former journalist of Kommersant and Vedomosti, Safronov, had been writing for years on delicate topics related to the defense industry, and “he had to be checked more than once” by the Russian special services. He was arrested in July 2020 on charges of collaborating with Czech intelligence and transmitting data in 2017 about Russian military-technical cooperation in Africa and the actions of the Russian Armed Forces in the Middle East. Safronov denied the charges. The fact that the accused, according to the investigation, allegedly worked for the Czech intelligence service, Meister considers “almost impossible.”
This case is unlikely to have a significant impact on German-Russian relations, Meister said. “There is almost nothing left that could worsen German-Russian relations even more than now,” the expert says.
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