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Carole Cadwalladr Profile picture
@carolecadwalla
Mar 6, 2022 • 11 tweets • 6 min read • Read on X
Scrolly
This twitter thread crystallised for me why Lebedev coverage today so frustrating.

Russian soldiers are killing women & children trying to flee.

And our prime minister's relationship with the son of an ex-KGB agent is deeply problematic.

AS WE HAVE KNOWN FOR YEARS
1/
To be clear, @Gabriel_Pogrund's story in ST following up @pcaruanagalizia revelations is important.

A breakthrough moment.

But we have been trying to tell story not just of Lebedev but of Johnson's Russian links FOR YEARS
2/
 thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-…
In July 2019, @nickhopkinsnews did pair of jaw dropping stories. Johnson had attended a NATO summit on sanctions post-Skripal.

He threw off security detail, flew to Italy & partied with Lebedev.

And then the photos turned up: Johnson, a hungover mess
3/
theguardian.com/politics/2019/…
Then @TownsendMark & I revealed extra gobsmacking detail.

It wasn't just Evgeny Lebedev at party. His father, Alexander, the ex-KGB agent flew in from Russia.

Reminder: this was immediately after Putin used a prohibited chemical weapon on UK soil.
4/
 theguardian.com/media/2019/nov…
Russia attacked one British citizen. And killed another. With a banned unconventional weapon. An act of aggression that led to sanctions & UK & US & EU expelling dozens of Russian spies.

And Boris Johnson's response was to leave a NATO summit to meet an ex-KGB spy? WHAT?!?
5/
Is there even any such thing as an ex-KGB agent?

Litvenko (FSU) was poisoned with radiation. Skripal (GRU) was Novichocked.

And what does Lebedev Snr do now? Well here he is spreading Russian propaganda in newspaper his son owns.
6/
 independent.co.uk/voices/comment…
What are Alexander Lebedev's views on illegal annexation of Crimea? They're Putin's views.

Unsurprisingly. He has business in Crimea. Remember, Russia didn't invade Ukraine last week. Crimea IS Ukraine. And it invaded in 2014.

So what on earth is Johnson deal with him & son?
7/ Image
We don't know. Because despite major investigations by Jim Cusick, @lukeharding1968 & @johnsweeneyroar, it was buried.

Because in Britain, if r/w media & BBC ignore. It's not a story.

Yet it was. In plain sight.

opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocra…

8/
Will BBC finally now cover it? When we broke the above, @amolrajan was media correspondent. He was also close to Lebedev, his former boss. As former editor of the @Independent, he'd had to publish his pro-Putin propaganda.
9/
standard.co.uk/comment/commen…
It's why MPs @BenPBradshaw & @RhonddaBryant & @IanCLucas are speaking out. Why I can't handle A Neil's hypocrisy. And why after seeing footage of mother & children, I wanted to set this down.

It's not peevishness. It's frustration & sadness & fear.

It's just all so late.
10/ Image
If only there had been some sign.

11/ Image

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More from @carolecadwalla

Carole Cadwalladr Profile picture
Feb 28
Congrats to all the news orgs that signed syndication deals with this company. You’ve licensed your journalism to be a core component of Trump’s illegal war machine. Great job everyone 👏
A special shoutout to the editor-in-chief & CEO of the Guardian, Kath Viner & Anna Bateson. The deal with OpenAI was an unforced error which legitimised OpenAI’s illegal scraping of Guardian data & IP. In exchange for a quick buck. The NYTimes, in contrast, chose to sue.
Anthropic stood up to Trump. But OpenAI has capitulated. And now all its ‘partners’ are complicit in the consequences.

That includes Guardian. It will financially benefit from its journalists’ work - inc mine - being used to support Trump’s illegal wars & ICE’s reign of terror.
Read 4 tweets
Carole Cadwalladr Profile picture
Feb 19
PREDICTION: If Andrew is charged (no assumption of guilt etc), we are going to have a crisis of both the press & judiciary.

In Britain, it is an offence to publish ANY info on defendant beyond bare facts.

But! US outlets can print whatever they like…
1/
Contempt of court is foundational principle of British justice: press must not prejudice a jury trial.

Editors risk a prison sentence if found in breach.

Even in digital age, the law held…but how could it possibly withstand deluge of US coverage in a case like this??
3/
Short answer: it won’t. Far right agitator Tommy Robinson weaponised UK laws on contempt as a ‘cover up’ over grooming scandal. And the New Yorker ignored & published on Lucy Letby.

If Andrew is charged, it’ll trigger a crisis for both the press & judiciary
4/
Read 4 tweets
Carole Cadwalladr Profile picture
Jan 28
NEW: Our investigation for @thenerve_news reveals not only that Peter Thiel’s Palantir is completely enmeshed in our critical national infrastructure.

It’s also the ‘cloud support’ for our nuclear weapons system
1/ Image
Palantir’s stated mission is to defend America. Peter Thiel is a radical libertarian who does not believe ‘freedom & democracy are compatible’.

Yet, the UK is overwhelmingly dependent on Palantir’s services. As a national security threat, this is off the charts.
2/ Image
Please read the piece with comments from tech & national security experts.

We have no national security while we rely on highly political US Silicon Valley firms that are enmeshed in Trump’s increasing fascistic administration.
3/ Image
Read 4 tweets
Carole Cadwalladr Profile picture
Jan 20
Compare & contrast. This is Trump’s demand for Greenland. And this is Hitler’s for the Sudetenland.

There is no difference. The language. The unstoppable need to dominate. The megalomania. It’s the same.

And Keir Starmer’s response is appeasement. We are in that moment.
1/ Image
Image
I’m back to mocking up my own headlines for my newsletter because the press - esp here in the UK - is failing to meet the moment.

We’re now trapped between Russia in the east. And the US in the west. Two hostile states openly seeking to crush us.

2/
 open.substack.com/pub/broligarch…Image
Ignore the political pundits. They’ve failed us. The media is failing us. Listen to the historians. This is Conservative historian Robert Kagan on what is happening in Minneapolis & what it means.
3/ Image
Read 4 tweets
Carole Cadwalladr Profile picture
Nov 21, 2025
The sentencing hearing of Nathan Gill has begun.

Follow @thenerve_news for updates throughout the day.
1/ Image
The barrister for the Crown has laid out the background and context for the case, including Ukraine's efforts to join the European Union.
2/
The barrister confirms that Gill was en route to Moscow when he was stopped at Manchester airport in 2021 (as first reported in @thenerve_news.
3/
 thenerve.news/p/nathan-gill-…
Read 35 tweets
Carole Cadwalladr Profile picture
Nov 12, 2025
NEW: The entire BBC news cycle is an abject lesson in the disaster economics of information.

This isn’t just a news story. It’s a teachable example of real-time information collapse. We can’t fix that but we can & must save the BBC.
1/
I wrote this back in Jan. What is happening to BBC is part of a systemic issue: total information collapse.

This is what happens when justified grievance, bad faith actors & Silicon Valley companies converge: erosion of trust in all institutions.
2/
broligarchy.substack.com/p/total-inform…Image
There are sound reasons to criticise BBC. We’re all pissed off with it over something! But our valid critiques are being weaponised by the enemies of democracy.

The BBC is a crucial firewall in a moment of unprecedented danger. Why do you think Russia is joining in?!
3/ Image
Read 6 tweets

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