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21 Sep, 9 tweets, 3 min read
UK authorities have just announced Denis Sergeev, who travelled to the UK under the alias Sergey Fedotov, has been charged as the third suspect in the poisoning of Sergei Skripal. Bellingcat first revealed Sergeev's involvement in the poisoning two and a half year ago.
Denis Sergeev, travelling under his alias Sergey Vyacheslavovich Fedotov became a person of interest in our investigation after Russian news outlet Fontanka discovered he had travelled around the same time as the Skripal suspects using a similar passport number.
The GRU’s habit of creating passports for fake identities in batches at the same passport office made it easier to find fake personas, and led us to connecting the Sergey Fedotov alias to a previous suspected nerve agent poisoning in Bulgaria in 2015 bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…
The careful analysis of records and documents allowed us to find the real identity, Denis Vyacheslavovich Sergeev, behind the fake persona, and track his travels throughout Europe
bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…
The data acquired by Bellingcat included detailed phone records, allowing us to track Denis Sergeev’s movements through London, notably to the Embankment area bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…
This location is significant, as it was close to the time at which the two Skripal suspects departed by train to Salisbury from a nearby train station. Our BBC Newsnight report provides more details
Sergeev's travels were well documented thanks to travel records and phone records, and from that we can tell he spent a lot of time in Switzerland around World Anti-Doping Agency buildings for yet to be established reasons bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…
Further investigations into Sergeev helped identify various teams involved with the attempted assassination of Emilian Gebrev in Bulgaria in 2015, using a suspected nerve agent bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…
While we have a great deal of data on Sergeev's movements we've yet to identify the exact purpose of many of his trips, and hope there will be more international investigations into the movements of him and his GRU colleagues across Europe.

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More from @bellingcat

Bellingcat Profile picture
9 Sep
Fans of Hungary's national team have recently faced scrutiny for displaying homophobic banners & alleged racist chants.
Now, @ColborneMichael reports that anti-LGBT banners held by some #Hungary fans at #EURO2020 appear to be connected to a neo-Nazi group bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…
Last week, Hungarian football fans booed England players taking the knee and allegedly aimed racist chants at the team’s black players.

But this wasn’t the first time a group of extreme Hungary fans have brought a hateful agenda into stadia.
European football’s governing body, UEFA, fined the country’s football federation and ordered the team to play 2 UEFA matches without spectators in response to anti-LGBT & racist behaviour from Hungarian fans during EURO 2020 matches. bbc.co.uk/sport/football…
Read 21 tweets
Bellingcat Profile picture
20 Aug
This includes all the individuals identified in our investigation with @the_ins_ru who we demonstrated were tied to the attempted assassination of @navalny
Our full investigation into the poisoning of @navalny containing many more details about these individuals and the assassination attempt can be found here bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…
It should not be forgotten that various combinations of these same individuals were linked to a number of other apparent assassinations and attempted assassinations. After Navalny, we first linked the deaths of three activists to their movements.
bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…
Read 13 tweets
Bellingcat Profile picture
17 Aug
As the war in Ethiopia continues to rage, speculation continues over the use of armed drones in the conflict zone. But now, a series of photos of PM Abiy Ahmed’s visit to an airbase reveals interesting aircraft in the background. Could they be drones? @wammezz investigates.
To find out, Bellingcat obtained high resolution satellite imagery of the Semara Airfield from @planet and @maxar. This gave a clearer ID on the shape, size and wingspan of what were indeed drones. We could now compare them with similar Chinese, Turkish and Iranian drone types.
A closer look at the background of more images from PM Ahmed's visit suggested that these drones bear close similarities to the Mohajer-6, an armed drone manufactured by Iran.
Read 9 tweets
Bellingcat Profile picture
13 Aug
In March, the Amsterdam District Court ruled that articles published in 2020 by RIA FAN about Bellingcat & its staff members were incorrect & unlawful. Today we note, following a challenge by RIA FAN, the same court has upheld its initial verdict.
bellingcat.com/riafan_en/
All RIA FAN achieved with its opposition is that the penalties ordered by the court for non-compliance have been withdrawn for practical reasons. Nevertheless, RIA FAN remains obliged to pay Bellingcat's legal costs.
Crucially, the offending materials must still be removed from RIA FAN's website. Regrettably, we note that this has not yet happened.
Read 6 tweets
Bellingcat Profile picture
6 Aug
The latest from the Berlin bicycle assassin murder court case, from @christogrozev and @michaeldweiss, with details of a new witness who appeared in court last week newlinesmag.com/reportage/excl…
Bellingcat has ended up playing a significant role in the trial, as evidence gathered as part of our investigation into the assassination became key evidence in the trial. First, a week after the trial we identified the suspect's ID documents were fakes bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…
We then eliminated a major false lead to the real identity of the suspect, and identified the state level activity required to create the suspect's fake identity.
bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…
Read 9 tweets
Bellingcat Profile picture
3 Aug
Dozens were killed after clashes between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in April, the most violent confrontation in years.

A disputed border and local politics are often described as being at the root of tensions. But is changing climate also playing a role? bellingcat.com/resources/case…
Data indicate less rainfall, lower ground temperature, and poorer vegetation health in the year preceding the clashes.

While this doesn't suggest climate or water availability was the sole cause of April’s crisis, it is a correlation which warrants serious scrutiny.
An analysis remote sensing data shows that just a few years of disruptions to the climate on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border has decreased water availability, hurt agricultural yields and increased plant stress.
Read 11 tweets

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