Russia mistakenly doxxes its own secret bases and spies

A relatively obscure website of the Moscow City Hall has given away a list of “special consumers” on the Russian electricity grid. It includes facilities maintained by the country’s military and security agencies.

“Special consumers” are obviously locations that are too important to ever be disconnected from the grid – a constant flow of electricity should be available at all times, even in the event of blackouts or power shortages.

Such entries include critical infrastructure locations such as hospitals and major train stations. But a leak on the Moscow City Hall website also exposed the exact sites of objects maintained by the military and intelligence agencies.

Of course, the information was never supposed to become public. But the Dossier Center, a non-profit investigative project, says in an extensive report that the detailed 434-page document containing the addresses was accidentally leaked online.

The document, titled “Special Group,” was up only temporarily and is no longer available but it was there long enough for the Dossier Center journalists to analyze it.

The leaked locations, for example, include an ammunition depot in the Leningrad region, undercover facilities run by the Federal Protective Service in Moscow, and places where military units are stationed in Primorye, a territory in Russia’s Far East. All these places are considered a state secret by law.

In one case, the document even included the apartment numbers of two homes used by spies in Moscow, the Dossier Center said.

A list of residential addresses also revealed at least six apartment buildings in Moscow that contain homes sold or given to intelligence officers in the Foreign Intelligence Service, Russia's top external intelligence agency.

Interestingly, after checking some of the listed apartments, the Dossier Center concluded that the residents “could hardly be” intelligence officers or agents. This doesn’t mean they’re not, of course.

Several officials signed the document, including Moscow's mayor, Sergey Sobyanin, the Dossier Center said.

It appears there is no general standard for compiling lists in different regions of Russia. For instance, the facilities in the Leningrad region are carefully indicated but Chechnya seems like a stronghold of peace.

The list in the Chechen Republic – its leader Ramzan Kadyrov approved it – includes only hospitals, schools and daycare centers. Not a single military unit appears. In North Ossetia, on the other hand, there are objects controlled by the Federal Security Service in almost every village.

With Russia still waging war in and on Ukraine, Kyiv has been striking back at objects inside Russia. So the Dossier Center even prepared a map “of the most dangerous places for Russian residents.”

“The dots on the map do not mark specific houses, but the approximate radius of damage in the event of an attack. We are sure that all this open data has long been known to the Ukrainian military, but it will help civilians in Russia better assess risks,” said the organization.

Moscow has been facing more trouble online recently. For example, Anonymous-affiliated hackers have amassed vast amounts of data on Russian assets – including X accounts spreading propaganda and important state institutions. Cybernews analyzed the freshest batch of information this week.