Thread by @bellingcat

Bellingcat has done a number of investigations looking at who was behind #TheSalisburyPoisonings, first by identifying one of the suspects as GRU Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…

Chepiga was not only a GRU Colonel, but, as we discovered, a recipient of the Hero of Russia award, Russia's highest honour, and awarded personally by Putin himself. #TheSalisburyPoisonings bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…

We then identified the second suspect as Dr. Alexander Mishkin, a GRU agent and also a recipient of the Hero of Russia award. It's believed their awards were for activity in Ukraine in 2014.
#TheSalisburyPoisonings bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…

By examining passenger lists of flights into the UK it was possible to identify a third GRU officer linked to #TheSalisburyPoisonings, Denis Sergeev, who appeared to be Mishkin and Chepiga's commander
bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…

Sergeev was a particularly interesting character as he had been in Bulgaria during another poisoning, of a Bulgarian arms dealer, who was poisoned with an unidentified organophosphate
#TheSalisburyPoisonings bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…

Thanks to the work of Bellingcat and its partners, in particular @The_ins_ru, the investigation into the Bulgaria poisoning was reopened, and it was possible to identify many more GRU officers involved with the Bulgaria poisoning
#TheSalisburyPoisonings
bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…

It was possible to link the Skripal poisoners to the same military unit as the Bulgaria poisoners, unit 29155, with one Skripal poisoner, Chepiga, attending the wedding of the unit commander's daughter
#TheSalisburyPoisonings
bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…

We were also able to acquire detailed phone records of Unit 29155 members, including the third Skripal suspect, which showed their travels in the UK, as well as elsewhere in Europe #TheSalisburyPoisonings bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…

Using the data collected and methodologies developed during the Skripal investigation, we were able to identify other Russian spies, such as one involved with an attempted coup in Montenegro in 2016
#TheSalisburyPoisonings
bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…

GRU tradecraft isn't exactly on point, one of the best examples is 305 individuals who registered their cars at the GRU cyber warfare department, probably to avoid traffic fines and being pulled over by the police. #TheSalisburyPoisonings bellingcat.com/news/2018/10/0…

Other patterns of behaviour that helped us find Russian spies is sequentially registered passport numbers for their fake identities, and using their actual first name, place of birth, and birth dates on their fake IDs #TheSalisburyPoisonings
bellingcat.com/news/2018/10/0…

Most recently we identified another GRU officer linked to the Bulgaria poisoning working as a diplomat working for the World Trade Organisation who suddenly left his role after we first started outing GRU spies in 2018
#TheSalisburyPoisonings
bellingcat.com/news/2020/02/2…

We've also been exposing operatives working for the FSB, including finding the real identify of the assassin who killed Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in Berlin in August 2019 #TheSalisburyPoisonings bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…

Most recently we've been identifying more FSB officers linked to operations in Europe. Both the GRU and FSB appear to be running their own operations in Europe, including plotting coups and assassinations. #TheSalisburyPoisonings
bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…

This recent thread from @LauraHuu dives into some of the work around the Bulgaria poisoning case linked to the third Skripal suspect #TheSalisburyPoisonings

https://twitter.com/LauraHuu/status/1272276785816915969

In conclusion, #TheSalisburyPoisonings were just one of a number of GRU operations on European soil, and only one of a small handful of GRU operations in Europe actually discovered. Based on the data we have, there is almost certainly many more yet to be identified.

But hopefully not for long. #TheSalisburyPoisonings