Breaking: @Bellingcat and its partners @the_ins_ru and @DerSpiegel have definitively linked the murder of Georgian asylum-seeker of Chechen origin, Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, with Russia’s security service FSB. bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…
@the_ins_ru @derspiegel In our previous investigations, we already identified the assassin - who was detained shortly after the execution-style killing in Berlin's Kleiner Tiergarten on 23 August 2019, as Vadim Krasikov, 54. He traveled under the guise of Vadim Sokolov, 49. 
@the_ins_ru @derspiegel Krasikov had been previously wanted for two contract killings in Russia, but charges against him were mysteriously dropped in 2015. Leaked Russian databases show that he was given his alter ego as Sokolov several months after his search warrant was withdrawn.
@the_ins_ru @derspiegel For our new investigation, we were able to track the suspect's telephone communication and movements in the months before the assassination, as well as during part of his August 2019 trip to Paris, Warsaw, and then Berlin.
@the_ins_ru @derspiegel We discovered that he communicated primarily with former officers from the FSB's Vympel unit, a glorified Spetsnaz unit that was once set up by the KGB for overseas clandestine operations, including assassinations. Its present-day successor is named Department "V"
@the_ins_ru @derspiegel By geo-locating the cell id of each phone call or internet connection made by Krasikov in the months before the murder, we could trace his movements in and around Moscow. The data was overwhelming, but we looked hard for a pattern.
@the_ins_ru @derspiegel After weeks of data-mining, we discovered a pattern that showed a more than casual link between Krasikov and the FSB, On numerous days, he would visit an FSB center in Moscow, and would then move on to a secretive Special Operations Center outside the city.
@the_ins_ru @derspiegel He would also visit a training base for Spetsnaz operatives outside Moscow, where at one point he stayed for 4 consecutive days. This base is used for special shooting training for Russia's commandos. This report shows a rare glimpse into the secret base
@the_ins_ru @derspiegel At one point, a month before his trip to Berlin, Krasikov drove directly from FSB's anti-terrorism center to the Western-Russian town of Bryansk. He received his fake ID as "Vadim Sokolov" in Bryansk, and registered under that name as living at a local address.
@the_ins_ru @derspiegel Our investigative partner @the_ins_ru was able to reach one of Krasikov's key contacts in the months before the murder, the President of the Vympel Fund Eduard Bendersky. He denied knowing Krasikov. Yet, we reached him on the number seen in Krasikov's call records.
@the_ins_ru @derspiegel Based on this extensive communication with Vympel (ex) members, and his frequent visits to FSB locations immediately before his trip - including the Center for Special Operations, we concluded that the FSB played a key role in preparing the Berlin assassination.
@the_ins_ru @derspiegel We also identified a second phone number that was issued in the name of "Vadim Sokolov" just before the trip to Berlin. We found something very odd in the call records and metadata for this number. It was clear that someone had purposely manipulated this number's metadata
@the_ins_ru @derspiegel Timestamps for all calls and internet connections were faked and garbled, and the addresses for each cell tower were faked to appear as if the phone was used only in Moscow. However, we were able to reverse-engineer the timestamps and cell locations.
@the_ins_ru @derspiegel We were able to do this based on bench-marking certain timestamps to known times of certain events, such as "Sokolov"' flight departure and landing times in Moscow, Paris and Warsaw. This allowed us to reconstruct the true timeline.
@the_ins_ru @derspiegel While two days of his initial stay in Paris are totally scrubbed from the metadata, we saw that on the last day before his departure to Warsaw he was a bona-fide tourist, visiting many well-known Paris landmarks, like the Eiffel Tower an the Louvre.
@the_ins_ru @derspiegel His two days in Warsaw were no less touristic: he went to see two palaces in and near Warsaw, in one case hiring a local tour guide to show him the sights.
@the_ins_ru @derspiegel On 22 August, he left his phone in his hotel room at Novotel Centrum, near Warsaw's central station - which he had prepaid for a full week - and left to Berlin. He planned to return after the Berlin mission, and probably needed his phone to stay on, and in Warsaw, as alibi.
@the_ins_ru @derspiegel Thanks to two Berlin teenagers who saw him take off his wig and change clothes in the bushes near the murder, who alerted the police, his plans - and now we know, the plans of the FSB - never materialized.
@the_ins_ru @derspiegel Coverage in German can be found here
@the_ins_ru @derspiegel Russia's security apparatus appears flummoxed. One Spetsnaz vet organization chief says "The Vympel fund mentioned in Bellingcat story does not exist", another says "The Vympel Fund does charity and not murders...but if it did do murder, nobody would find out"
