The Wall Street Journal on Thursday published an article with a familiar byline: that of Evan Gershkovich, who was freed from a Russian prison as part of a massive international prisoner exchange deal after spending 16 months behind bars.

The subject: a deep dive into the Kremlin operatives responsible for his own imprisonment.

“When I was arrested by Russia’s security forces in 2023 — the first foreign correspondent charged with espionage since the Cold War — I never stopped reporting,” Gershkovich wrote in the piece, which also includes the bylines of three other WSJ reporters. “On my release I set out to identify the man who had taken me, and to learn more about the spy unit that had carried out his orders.”

The story focuses in particular on a little-known ― yet deeply powerful ― group called the Department for Counterintelligence Operations, or DKRO.

It’s run by a man the reporters identify as Lt. Gen. Dmitry Minaev, a shadowy figure with close personal ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin who likely coordinated both Gershkovich’s arrest and his release.

The reporters paint a compelling argument for the DKRO as the “Kremlin’s most elite security force,” with Minaev perched at the top orchestrating violence both at home and abroad.

That includes “surveilling, intimidating, or arresting foreigners and the Russians it suspects of working with them” within Russian borders, and engaging in harassment and outright terrorism in the rest of the world.

According to the Journal, Minaev ordered officers to detonate carb bombs in Kyiv in 2017, killing top Ukrainian military and intelligence officials. The agency’s also believed to be responsible for killing a U.S. diplomat’s dog, stalking an ambassador’s children, and kidnapping foreigners in Eastern European countries.

Gershkovich was released in August after being falsely accused by the DKRO of acting as a CIA spy. In all, the U.S. and its allies returned eight Russian nationals as part of the deal, including individuals with suspected ties to Russian intelligence.

Before the Russians would release him, the reporter had to request a presidential pardon from Putin. Gershkovich used the paperwork to also ask for an interview with Putin himself; the interview request was denied.

Read Gershkovich’s full story at The Wall Street Journal.