Thread by @EliotHiggins

This week Roman @Dobrokhotov appeared at the Berlin bicycle assassination trial detailing more incidents that ties the suspect to other assassination across the world
tagesschau.de/investigativ/t…

It seems likely the outcome of the Berlin bicycle assassination case will be a big test for the new coalition government, how will they react to a Russian state sponsored assassination on their territory?

More interestingly for us at Bellingcat is the identity of the suspect and his links to the Russian intelligence services were identified using the same techniques used in our other investigations into Russian assassination attempts, including the Skripal and Navalny cases.

If a German court accepts our evidence and links the assassin to the Russian intelligence services what will the broader reaction to our other similar investigations be from other European states and the EU?

We plenty of travel details of Russian spies travelling in teams all over Europe, with some of those trips linked to specific activity, but there's plenty of other trips which are still unexplained.

It would be nice to see more support for investigating exactly what those trips were about, especially when we already know they've been linked to sabotage, assassinations, election interference, and attempted coups.

These all seem like things the European Union should take a lot more seriously and it's not great that so far so much of this has only been exposed because of the work of Bellingcat and its partners.

And as we speak Bellingcat and its partners are being targeted for reprisals by the Russian state in a variety of ways, so a bit more support than a thumbs up and pat on the back is probably needed.

Another reason the outcome of the Berlin case could be significant, and it wouldn't surprise me if we see the judgement before the end of the year. It could really define German-Russian relations in 2022.

https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1463983836937822214?t=b9_RrmRjzksK9ZPnvT2WXQ&s=19

It's also pretty obvious at this point Russian bureaucrats really do believe we're part of the Western intelligence services after getting high off their own propaganda farts for too long and that makes me sad for Russians.

They must think we're geniuses for getting away with it for so long.

I apologise to the GRU officer who has to write reports on my terrible tweets.