Thread by @bellingcat

What's the deal with this CNN story about an American spy who was in the Russian government? Our deep(ish) dive on the available evidence, showing that the CIA makes dumb mistakes just like GRU does:
bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…

Since CNN, the New York Times, and NBC all published stories on Oleg Smolenkov (without naming him directly), Putin's press secretary Peskov has given comment on Smolenkov. @kommersant also has sources at the FSB that confirmed that Smolenkov is alive, fled Russia abroad in 2017.

Either CNN did not do even basic due diligence in protecting Smolenkov's identity, or they didn't care -- it takes only a few minutes of light googling to find a Presidential Administrative official disappeared a few weeks after CNN reported that the CIA was pulling their asset.

This same Smolenkov and his wife bought a house in their real names in suburban Virginia a year later, either revealing a huge CIA blunder (very possibly) or a lack of concern of their being targeted in Virginia. The FSB knew that Smolenkov fled in Montnegro, for what it's worth.

Judging by sourced comments in NBC, CNN, and the Times, they wanted to protect the Smolenkovs' identity and presence in Virginia, making this a pretty dumb, GRUesque mistake from the CIA (unless there's some four-dimensional chess going on).