In an weird twist this guy, whose name I think now can be revealed (Sergey Surkov) drops with yet another complaints and allegations against their commanders and organizers of the Russian mobilization. Says they're "somewhere in Belgorod region". t.me/insiderUKR/428…
There are some other videos too from the spot: soldiers complain that they have no food, weapons are old and stuff. t.me/rybar/39798
I didn't geolocate it yet, but wherever it's filmed it starts to smell like a staged story now a little bit for me (TBC)
The video was posted on and being reposted by pro-Wagner channels, which matches Prigozhin's "Fire Shojgu" narrative (t.me/rsotmdivision/…). Also some Wagner patches are visible on it. Nearly all "poor mobiks" on the video wear balaclavas
(I think patches are just a kind of Prigozhin's "Easter egg" here). The guy also makes a weird claim they've all (he says 500 people) got COVID on that train.
Here's Rybar's video with the Wagner patches filmed at the same location t.me/rybar/39798
Video can be geolocated here: 50.44419° N, 38.30003° E (h/t @merr1k), other sources confirm it's Livenka, Belgirod region. t.me/agentstvonews/…
Russian MoD makes ridiculous claim that these guys headed to Mulino for training. If they departed from Moscow to Belgorod and then for training to Mulino, their route would look like this:
(And I say "departed from Moscow" because same "Sergey Surkov" posted his 1st complaints video from there 2 week ago).
There's still plenty to investigate, I leave some space for "it's all for real" theory, just shared my concerns and will continue to look into this story.
Just noticed one more Wagner associated patch on one of the men in balaclavas. After watching this video for several times I clearly see the group of 8-10 people hiding their faces and better equipped than others.
Great recap of the whole story by @mediazzzona. We dug together all day, but didn't find evidence of Prigozhin's direct involvement. The fact though is "Putin's cook" and his media channels jumped heavily on the stories about poor mobilization management. zona.media/article/2022/1…
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🧵/ Link in the last post. Remember the recent WaPo piece about Russia expanding its secret biological lab complex near Moscow? With @pustota, we proved that a Russian defense minister personally inspected it. We also found renders, images of the construction and inside the lab.
The new biolabs are part of the 48th Central Scientific Research Institute of the Russian Ministry of Defense. First, we found this image of the new facility on the website of the construction company responsible for the finishing works. archive.is/3t3pp
Using this photo, we identified the company that produced and installed the windows in the new labs (). They had published renders of the entire project, which align with Google Earth satellite imagery. archive.is/q5ggv
🧵/ link in the last post. Together with @Mike_Eckel and help from @C4ADS, we found that a Chinese company, which recently acquired a US plant in California and whose shares trade on the Swiss stock exchange, has shipped electronics to sanctioned Russian firms linked to military.
Not only were electronics produced by this company found in Russian guided aerial bombs in Ukraine, but some shipments were also made to the infamous FSB unit 34435, an employer of the 'poisoning squad' responsible for the 2020 poisoning of Russian dissident Alexey Navalny.
This is not the first instance of this FSB military unit receiving shipments that bypass sanctions; the previous case was even more alarming.
1/2 Not only did the Russian MoD acknowledge for the first time that ATACMS hit their targets, but also published photos of the rockets, one taken near the 'Pantsir' installed at Khalino air base in July and visible in a @planet satellite image from Nov. 2nd.
2/2 More photos of the ATACMS missile parts from the Russian MoD, taken in Khalino (t.me/mod_russia/462…) and Lotarevka (t.me/mod_russia/462…), where the S-400 missile system was hit.
Bonus post: Just noticed that Yandex now started to blur out some Russian military facilities as well (Khalino air base in this case).
1/2 Just a small bit of OSINT on Russia's new 'Oreshnik' MRBM, allegedly used to strike Dnipro (per Putin): I found the exactly the same part on the Russian govt procurement site. Docs from 2013 show it's also used for the S-30 'Bulava' SLBM. tenderguru.ru/tender/10388996
2/2 The 'ИРЦУ' marking is used by the Central Research Institute of Automation and Hydraulics (TsNIIAG) and can also be found in the procurement records of the Votkinsk Plant, which assembles the 'Topol-M,' 'Yars,' and other Russian strategic missiles. star-pro.ru/proverka-kontr…
Bonus post: Of course, this specific part for both old and "new" Russian strategic missiles (I doubt "Oreshnik" is truly "new") was made on a Swiss high-precision drilling and milling machine, the Fehlmann Picomax 54. docs.google.com/document/d/17z…
🧵1/7 A quick thread: finding yet another 'Pantsir' in Moscow Oblast in 10 minutes with the help of OSINT. (The ad on the pole says, 'Will buy any car'😆)
2/7 Yesterday, I added a few more crowdsourced 'Pantsirs' to my map of post-2022 air defense systems installed in Moscow and Moscow Oblast after the first Ukrainian drone attack on the Russian capital, and I noticed a 'ring' pattern in their placement.
🧵/ link in the last post. With @Maja_Zivanovic & @MilosKatic, we spoke to a Serbian mercenary who fought for Russia in Ukraine from Nov '22 to June '23. He revealed poor training, tensions with Russian commanders, and shell companies behind recruiting Serbs for the war.
Serbs fighting for Russia since 2014 (via 'Wagner' then) isn’t new, but we seem to be the first Western media journalists to interview one. Of course, we didn’t take his words (and photos he provided) at face value; we corroborated them with other sources, including OSINT.
Dragan (name changed for security reasons) fought for the 'Volki' ('Wolves') unit, led by Bosnian Serb Davor Savicic (on the left). Our guy was recruited by the infamous Dejan Beric (on the right), who has stayed abroad since joining Russian forces in Ukraine in 2014.