Not sure what exactly is happening in Bulgaria but apparently a massive security operation overnight locked down parts of the capital, with reported arrests of people suspected of spying for Russia. The chief prosecutor implicitly confirmed reports via a cryptic tweet.
A press conference by Bulgaria's prosecution going on now: 2 military officers arrested in addition to a former military counter-intelligence officer who allegedly worked on behalf of Russian intelligence to recruit and broaden the intelligence network.
investigators intercepted data gathering tasks given to military officers by the main spy (the former intelligence officer)
The tasks - which were given by GRU - included taking screenshots of PCs at the MoD that had confidential data. Of particular interests were topics related to Syria, Ukraine, Nagorno-Karabakh. Investigators tracked the data-gathering
Ironically, the spy ring-leader explains how is motivation is purely ideological ("I cried when Stalin died"), but then they immediately switch to discussing monthly payments
Investigators were able to surveil and record one of the officers counting his pay (in USD mind you, not in Rubles, paid in envelopes)...the guy apparently counter the money at his MoD military intelligence work place.
The recruited spies were promised highly encrypted telephones that encrypt even the photographs they take.
During the arrests last night, one of the suspects tried to escape detention, which led to the search-and-capture operation last night. He was arrested.
A total of 6 suspects have been indicted, apparently included the wife of the ring-leader who is a Russian citizen and who - according to prosecutors - maintained the relationship with the Russian "diplomats" at the Sofia RU embassy.
The "tasks" memo is written in broken Bulgarian with frequent Russian prepositions and other words. Tasks included: data from NATO meetings, data from @NATOpress, EU policy to RU, Ukraine & Belarus, names of US, UK, DE contacts & topics of meetings, names of NC(S?)A, CIA and SCS
As several people asked, I had misunderstood the phrase about the ring-leader crying at Stalin's death. His father did, he was 7 then. But he (the ring-leader) says he is now not just pro-Soviet, but pro-Stalin.
The Russians spy-masters were particularly interested in "Those 8% of Poles that are at the core of the Belarus protests"... say what now.
I translated one of the task lists passed on by the spy master to one of the assets: it reads straight out of an 80s spy movie. In red are all the misspelled/misused words (written by Russian native speaker).
P.S. What's with the niece?
And still my favorite is the idiot who counted his spy money in the MOD office - apparently he didn't trust his spy masters didn't cheat him.
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I've been reporting to @Meta fake profiles that impersonate me on Facebook. Meta refuses to remove the impersonators, for some inscrutable reason considering impersonation of an investigative journalist to *not* be a violation or their terms. This is irresponsible and dangerous.
. Not only did @Meta not remove the impersonators, but are *actively* pushing them to people. This is a fake account created in 2021. Facebook is suggesting to someone to add this fake person as their friend. Just imagine the risks from this irresponsible behavior.
@Meta To my real account, I constantly get unsolicited tips from whistleblowers who trust me. Imagine what would happen if/when a whistleblower contacts a fake account created by a bad state actor. @Meta is not simply helping spread disinformation, it's actively endangering lives.
Pavel Durov, Telegram's founder, claims he was poisoned in 2018 (symptoms he describes are indeed are consistent with nerve agents/organoposphates). He chose "not to tell my colleagues so I wouldn't scare them"
I believe him this happened. Sadly, he didn't volunteer information on where this happened (I wish he had, so we could triangulate the usual suspects - in 2018 he was a MAJOR thorn in the side of Russian authorities). But thanks to leaked databases we can have some guesses.
Based on leaked travel data, he spent most of the time in 2018 in Dubai, interspersed with stays in Switzerland, France and the UK. Interestingly (likely coincidentally), he left the UK for Dubai a day after the Skripal poisoners left London for Moscow.
In our new investigation into Russia's use of children for their military drone program, crucial evidence came from @tashurkevich's undercover phone calls. Here are some of the most striking confessions she extracted.
What are the tasks assigned to the kids? Well they sound like things from Ender's Game (link to full investigation here: )
Here Tatsiana calls "Maksim" who explains the kids' "oath of silence" in mentioning the war.
If anyone had any doubts about the subvertive nature of Chinese AI freebies, here's a good example.
I decided to ask @deepseek_ai to do a mundane job: edit the text of a recent @the_ins_ru article to make it more vocal-delivery friendly, so we can record it as a podcast. SFSG.
Here's the beginning of the original article that DeepSeek totally promised would not alter, but for style edits
And here's the offered text that I almost choked while reading out to my daughter.
NBC reports that, shockingly, during his latest Moscow pilgrimage Witkoff met with Putin and his two negotiators alone and without his own interpreter, relying - in breach of protocol - on a locally present one. . However, this seems half the problem (1/n)nbcnews.com/world/russia/r…
Here's the video released by the Kremlin. It clearly shows Witkoff pointing at the young woman and asking "Interpreter?", to which Putin & Co say "yes". Following that, cryptically Witkoff asks "from Embassy?", to which he again gets a confirmation.
So what embassy is the interpreter from? Obviously there's no Russian embassy in Moscow (unless Witkoff thinks so), so a logical conclusion is that he was assured she was, hm, sent by or approved by the US embassy? Anyway, let's look at who she is.
Serbian opposition activists post photo of what is alleged to be a police Jeep with a mounted long range acoustic device. Visual and audio evidence already seen from open sources is compatible with the use of such devices. If this photo is verified then there's no doubt anymore.
This is especially ridiculous given that Russia's man in Belgrade, Deputy PM Aleksandar Vulin, publicly thanked Russian intelligence for "helping quash color revolution attempts" in Serbia. I.e. any use of sonic weapon would've been coordinated with/done by RU intel to begin with
And a reminder that Unit 29155 of GRU, whose members are very frequent visitors to Belgrade, spent years researching "potential capabilities of non-lethal acoustic weapon in urban warfare"