Thread by @Leonov_mr

A sequel thread about @sumlenny, his past, and possible motives.

I didn't plan to write this, but since the original thread went viral I received a lot of information on Sergei that changed my perspective on him.

Things may be far worse than I thought

https://twitter.com/Leonov_mr/status/1517152576352911362

My first thread was written as a pamphlet. My goal was to show that Sergei is not a moral beacon nor a principled fighter against Putin, but an opportunist with no moral basis to say the things he says today.

Today I'll ask a more serious question:

Is Sergei to be trusted?

So, let's look at some facts.

1. In my previous thread, I stated that Sergei wasn't active on social media in 2014, and that's why we can't know what his position on Crimea and the war in Donbas was.

It turned out that this wasn't true. I was fooled by Sergei, essentially.

Apparently, Sergei has been active on Twitter since 2010. We have a lot of evidence in the form of other people's replies to the now non-existent tweets. So, for some reason, Sergei has deleted all of his tweets from 2010 to 2017

A bit strange, but nothing too suspicious, right?

But here is a detail that gave me a strong feeling that something is off with the guy:

He didn't JUST delete all of his stuff, he has also put an effort to make it look like it never existed, pretending that he just got on Twitter in 2016.

And it was enough to fool me!

'Mein erster Tweet' obviously translates as 'My first Tweet'.

So even if you don't think that erasing your whole online personality and essentially creating a new one from scratch is a suspicious thing to do for a public figure, this question remains:

Why the explicit lie?

2. So, after a guy on Twitter (@antibot4navalny ) brought this thing to my attention, I thought to myself: if Sergei is able to lie so casually, should we put other parts of his story to the test as well?

So I've decided to take a closer look at his now-deleted LiveJournal blog.

As I've stated in the original thread, I've consciously decided not to look into Sergei's early online career since he himself admitted that he held far-right imperialist views in his youth.

I do believe that people can change and things like that shouldn't haunt you forever.

However, there is one problem with Sergei's story.

In his 'confession' he explicitly states one thing: he was 18-22 back then, and then, as we can suppose, he had a change of heart. Those views would make him a Putinist today, but it's kind of implied that he never was one.

Sergei was born in 1980. In 2008, the year of Russia's invasion of Georgia, he was 28 (not 22). Let's use WebArchive and look at three posts from that year.

In the first one, Sergei shares an article about German TV 'censoring' Putin, titling the post 'How it's done'.

A second one. Sergei's words:

'Came across an article [...] a commentary on the war in South Ossetia. Really balanced - while reading, I was wondering where a catch would be, but there were none. Deep respect to the journalist. Looks like I should start reading Stern now.'

So, I think it's safe to say that the article in Stern more or less represents the 28 y.o. Sergei's view on invasion's context.

I'm using Google Translate in order not to be accused of deliberate misinterpretation.

And finally, a third one, in which Sergei is wondering, why didn't anyone compare the actions of the Georgian government to the Armenian Genocide.

So, I think that combining those posts can give us a pretty good idea of what Sergei thought about the Russian invasion and which side he was on.

Why is this important? Well, there is a huge difference between the age of 18-22 and the age of 28 when it comes to ideology.

If you'd say, 'I was an imperialist when I was 18-22, but I grew past that, almost everyone could be sympathetic to that. A person is usually still in a search of their political identity at that age.

'I've supported Putin's invasion when I was 28' is another story.

And Sergei obviously knows that, and that's why he uses the age 22 as a point in time when he stopped 'being bad', essentially.

The question of 'and what were your views at the age of 28-30' don't come up in this scenario: he already confessed, see? What's the point?

It could probably be argued that you can express concerns about German TV 'censoring' Putin, accuse Georgia of Genocide,argue that the West was essentially to blame, not saying anything critical of Russia's actions, and still not be a Putinist (Right?)

But here is one more thing

3. The most famous (or rather infamous) of Sumlenny's LiveJournal posts turned on the Russo-Georgian war is this one titled 'Information war'.

I urge you to read its translation:

Amanda Kokoeva's interview was a huge story in Russia.

A girl from Osetia was on FOX telling that it was Georgian soldiers, not Russians, who made her flee from her home, and that she was grateful to the Russian soldiers.

And the host allegedly was trying to shut her up.

The outrage started with Sergei's emotional post. It was cited in an article by RIA, the main Russian state news agency, then there were reports on TV, and then Putin himself talked about the supposed attempt to silence Amanda in his interview for CNN.

Here is Putin's quote:

The FOX News host 'coughing, wheezing and screeching', as Putin describes it, is the reason I'm bringing this story up.

He never did. In reality, the host doesn't make any sounds and lets Amanda talk. The video was severely edited.

But by whom?

There is a consensus online that the state media 'Vesti' added the sounds of coughing and wheezing along with the Russian dubbing of the clip. Wikipedia also says so, citing @amzin's article in LentaRu as a source.

But it can't be the case.

lenta.ru/articles/2008/…

Since I was told by people that 'Sumlenny is an inventor of an Osetian girl fake', I've dug deeper. I found an original post by Sergei via Wayback machine, but the video itself was lost

And then I've found this phrase: 'I've made a translation for those who don't speak English.'

So, the video Sergei has shared didn't have a voiceover from Vesti yet. But it already had the coughing edited in. Another evidence: Sumlenny's post was published on 14/08, and the 'Vesti' clip aired on 15/08, a day later.

This post turned out to be the origin of the fake.

Let this sink in. One of the most infamous fakes of Russian propaganda at the time, which was promoted by Putin himself and made headlines even in the West, is directly connected to 28 y.o. Sumlenny, a future German expert and one of the most prominent voices on European Twitter.

We have two possible versions:

1. Sergei edited the video himself
2. Sergei's claim of finding it in his feed is true, but he was the one who promoted this obvious (take a listen!) fake initially, which makes him a TERRIBLE journalist at best. And it seems he never addressed it

4. Now, let's move on to something that can give us some context to this whole story.

In 2016 Anatoly Suleimanov, former editor-in-chief of Life.ru, claimed that Sumlenny tried to get to work for Aram Gabrelyanov, calling him 'the great'.

And it's wild.

My Russian-language readers have probably gasped after hearing that name, but the international audience needs an additional explanation.

Gabrelyanov is probably the most infamous and despicable name in all of the Russian propaganda - and it's obviously quite an achievement.

There are individual pundits (e.g. Solovyov) who are more known to the general audience, but when it comes to the media moguls no one even came close to Gabrelyanov and his empire of lies called 'LifeNews'.

'LifeNews' means 'dishonest journalism with despicable methods' to every Russian, even to pro-Putin ones.

There was a story when they put out a reward for the footage of Navalny's vacation in Europe, and then Navalny filmed himself and claimed the bounty

navalny.com/p/5505

'Life' did a long bullshit piece about Navalny dining in the most expensive restaurants with the 'members of political and business elites.'

Little did they know that it was Navalny's wife who filmed the video with the goal of exposing their 'methods'.

life.ru/p/1036212

We could honestly go on and on about different fakes and propaganda pieces produced by Life, but I want you to understand:

At some point in time you could work in RIA, TASS, or MK, and to still be somewhat respected by your fellow journalists. 'He worked in Life' is a stigma.

In my previous thread, I accused Sergei of not raising his voice when working in the pro-Kremlin magazine. But 'Expert' was never purely fakes and propaganda. You could work there and still be morally grey

If he really considered working for Gabrelyanov, it's a whole other story

5. Now, let's talk about Alex Kokcharov, Sergei's long-time friend from 'Expert'. During his time on LinkedIn Sumlenny has given only one recommendation (for Alex) and received exactly one as well (from Alex)

https://twitter.com/antibot4navalny/status/1517148565407031296

Actually, Kokcharov's shadow was looming over this thread for a while now. He is a creator of a quite popular 'Fake MFA of Russia' Twitter account, now rebranded as 'Herald of Stability'

(Just found out that I'm blocked by this account already, as well as by K himself. Curious!)

In 2016 Sumlenny was accused of being a co-author of this account. After a few weeks, he did his whole '#MyFirstTweet' stunt that we talked about. Suleimanov's reveal that Sumlenny tried to get to work for Gabrelyanov was also tied to the events surrounding 'Herald of Stability'.

I won't link the 'investigation' in principle: the 'investigation' was published in pro-Kremlin outlets known for their false accusations (including LifeNews).

We don't know for sure if Sumlenny did have access to that account, so let's just assume it was Kokcharov all along.

However vague Sumlenny's connection to Herald may be, the reason I'm bringing it up is that this account operates in a curious way. So let's talk about that.

If you are a political junkie in Russia, you have probably heard the term 'Anonymous satirists'.

https://twitter.com/leonidvolkov/status/1429481374608760843

It's a group of Twitter accounts with oddly specific common traits:

1. Anonymous
2. Very critical of Putin
3. Retweet each other all the time
4. Strongly oppose Navalny's initiatives
5. Strongly opposed Zelensky's presidential candidacy

'Herald of Stability' is one of these.

If it sounds odd to you that the same group of accounts is famous for fighting Navalny's 'Smart voting' in Russia AND for smearing Zelensky's candidacy, that's because it is.

https://twitter.com/antibot4navalny/status/1375814269418147841

Those two social media campaigns were the reason people started to accuse 'the anonymous satirists' of having a hidden agenda.

@antibot4navalny spent a lot of time collecting evidence on that front, so you could check it out if you are interested.

But what about 'the Herald'?

And here is the most interesting part: Kokcharov's tactics on social media.

TLDR: he poses as a hardcore Navalny supporter to get retweets and subscribers from Navalny's audience, but then he uses that capital he gained to sabotage his actual initiatives.

At times he 'supports' Navalny and his team vigorously. He even calls him 'a future president'. He retweets him all the time

(Let's note, he is a friend and even a possible co-author of Sumlenny - seemingly the most anti-Navalny person in the entire world apart from maybe Putin)

But when Navalny urges Russian people to do something (cast a vote according to his 'smart voting' recommendation or participate in a protest), Kokcharov uses everything in his power to dissuade people from doing so.

https://twitter.com/antibot4navalny/status/1430376405645266946

And note: his criticisms are never about chauvinism or other accusations that Sumlenny uses in his tweets aimed at European audiences. Kokcharov wants you to think that he agrees that Navalny is a great guy, it's just that what he proposes is ineffective and you shouldn't do it.

So, we have two friends from 'Expert.'

1. Poses as a Navalny supporter to get some clout and uses it against Russian opposition in Russia itself.
2. Poses as an over-the-top anti-Russia German expert to get some clout and uses it against Russian opposition in the West.

It always felt a bit off to me: why would Sumlenny, an established expert, spend so much of his free time digging dirt on Navalny - a person who is, among other things, in the god damn Putin's jail with no prospect of being released?

But if you think of @sumlenny not as an account of a real person expressing his honest opinions, but as a media project in the vein of 'Herald of Stability' but aimed at the Western audiences instead of Navalny's supporters, it all starts to make sense a bit.

6. One last thing to talk about before the conclusion - the infamous thread in which Sergei argues for nuking Russia.

I have a few things to say about this. One: I can't think of a single tweet that would be more useful to Putin in his current situation.

A personal story: my older relative was convinced that the West was about to nuke Russia because she was told that on TV. I've said to her: no one in the West would say something like this; show me the source. She couldn't and admitted that she was deceived by TV.

Now she can.

Two: Sergei is from Odintsovo, it's a small town near Moscow. I urge you to imagine your home town. Then imagine that your country does something unspeakable in the vein of Russia or Nazi Germany.

Would you, in all seriousness, propose nuking it?

Would it be genuine if you did?

Three: the fact that a former Russian imperialist and a supporter of the invasion of Georgia is basically the only person in the west who proposes something like this is pretty telling.

I saw a lot of angry reactions to that from European experts and other users.

To me, it gives out the vibes of a guy who is trying to blend into a new community. He adopted the veneer but deep inside he is still very alien to these people.

So he accidentally says or does something over-the-top hoping to receive approval, but gets confused glances instead

7. Let's wrap it up by making something clear.

Do I really think that Sergei has a hidden agenda? After writing my first thread, I didn't. After all this new information my answer is: 'It won't surprise me a bit if it turned out to be the case, but I still don't'.

But I honestly think that all of these are enough for any current or future Sergei's employer, or for a former employer whose name Sumlenny still uses to boost his credibility (@boell_stiftung) to ask him some questions.

Here are the questions I would ask:

1. Why did you delete all of your tweets in 2016? Was there something to hide? Why did you pretend that your older tweets never existed by writing a fake 'first tweet'?

2. You've stated that you were an imperialist and ukrainofobe at 18-22. But your LiveJournal blog suggests that you were actively pro-Putin and pro-Russian invasion at least at the age of 28.

When exactly did you stop being that 'young male' you're afraid of now?

3. Were you really 'an inventor' of an Amanda Kokoeva' interview fake? Were you the one who edited the sounds in, or were you just propagating a fake created by someone else?

If so, when did you find out that an interview didn't cough? Did you ever address it?

4. Did you really consider working for Aram Gabrelyanov, the head of the infamous 'Life'? Did you call him 'the great'? If not, why would Suleimanov lie about that?

It yes, which year was that? And which of your skills did you consider helpful for a propagandist like Aram?

5. Did you have an access to an account known today as 'Herald of Stability'? Did you post anything? Do you know if this account really was a part of a social media campaigns against Navalny's 'smart voting' and against Zelensky? If so, who was the beneficiary in both cases?

6. What was going in your head when you were advocating for a preemptive nuclear strike? You are a prominent European expert with a huge audience. Did you sincerely think that it was the best tweet to publish that day?

And it's off topic, but since I'm blocked by Sergei and we are talking with imaginary Sergei now, I'll use this opportunity and ask:

Did Russia Consulting and you personally as a consultant on sanctions have anything to do with this story?

investigate-europe.eu/en/2022/eu-sta…

And I want to end this thread by addressing this imaginary Mr. Sumlenny once more:

Sergei, if you do indeed have a lot of sins as you claim, there is only one good option.

Confess.

PS: Here is an update on the 'Coughing interviewer' controversy.

I promise, you won't be dissapointed.

https://twitter.com/Leonov_mr/status/1519060762433572864