Share this page!

Enter URL or ID to Unroll

You can paste full URL like: https://x.com/threadreaderapp/status/1644127596119195649
or just the ID like: 1644127596119195649

How to get URL link on X (Twitter) App

  1. On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
  2. Click again on or Share Via icon
  3. Click on Copy Link to Tweet
  4. Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
  5. More info at Twitter Help
ChrisO_wiki Profile picture
@ChrisO_wiki
Oct 12, 2022 • 37 tweets • 14 min read • Read on X
Scrolly
1/ With the news today that Russia has arrested eight people as suspects for the bombing of the Crimea Bridge on 8 October, I thought it would be useful to try to piece together a full account of the Russian narrative, as I've not yet seen it in Western sources. Long 🧵 follows. Image
2/ I'm not endorsing this account – aspects have already been disputed – but it's worth looking at what regional media reports are saying. The Russians say that a truck bomb caused the blast; western experts have endorsed this theory (see below).
3/ According to the Russians, the cargo was sent from Odesa in Ukraine to Ruse on the Bulgarian border in early August 2022. It travelled via Romania and likely Moldova, sent under a contract with Kyiv-based company Translogistik UA to a company called Baltex Capital SA. Image
4/ Bulgarian National Radio reports that Baltex is registered in Panama, not Bulgaria. Its customs representatives are a Bulgarian forwarding company called Tivacom. Baltex instructed it to be sent to an Armenian company called Gu AR G Group.
5/ The Bulgarian newspaper Dnevnik reports that the cargo went to the Bulgarian port of Burgas, from where it was shipped by ferry to Poti in Georgia. It arrived there on 26 September. Image
6/ Armenian media reports say it was driven from Poti to Armenia in a Georgian-registered DAF truck driven by Artur Terjanyan, an Armenian-Georgian citizen. It arrived at the Bagratashen border post at 14:53 on 27 September, where it was inspected and X-rayed. Image
7/ No irregularities were found. The cargo was then driven to the Alliance Terminal, a customs warehouse on the outskirts of Yerevan, arriving on the same day at 22:46. It remained there temporarily before it was inspected again on 29 September and documents were submitted. Image
8/ According to the manifest, which the Russians have published, the cargo comprised 22 pallets with a total weight of 22,770 kg (50,200 lb) of Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene edge banding (used to finish the sides and ends of wood-based materials), stacked in rolls.
9/ Marked with "Made in China" stickers, the cargo was photographed and inspected by the Armenians. The lamination of one of the rolls of ABS plastic was checked to verify that it was correctly classified according to the trade rules.


Image
Image
Image
Image
10/ I haven't seen any clear explanation for why the truck went to Armenia. It might well be related to the fact that when it entered Armenia, customs checks were done under Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) customs rules, which also cover Russia. Georgia isn't a member. Image
11/ This may have provided a back door route into Russia – checks done at the EEU economic border presumably do not have to be redone at the Russian border if a cargo travels from one EEU country to another.
12/ The Armenian authorities say that the customs service at the Ararat Regional Customs House in Yerevan certified the cargo as being "goods of the EEU" on 30 September and issued a transit declaration. This likely made it easier to bring it into Russia. Image
13/ While at the Alliance Terminal, according to the Armenians, the truck was under camera surveillance for the whole time. It was neither loaded nor unloaded, nor was anything else added. It left Armenia at 00:38 on 1 October via the Bagratashen border post, again being X-rayed.
Image
Image
14/ The pictures of the truck above and the X-ray images were published by the State Revenue Committee of Armenia on Facebook (link below). The X-ray image was likely made at Bagratashen on either 27 September or 1 October.
facebook.com/petekamutner/p…
15/ Some commentators have misinterpreted this X-ray as showing the alleged bomb truck or have misattributed it as coming from the Russians. The image comes from Armenia and is of the Georgian DAF truck, not the truck that exploded, which was a different model entirely.
16/ Having entered Georgia again, the truck entered Russia at the Verkhniy Lars checkpoint in North Ossetia – the only open border crossing between the two countries. Curiously, it arrived there only on 5 October. What Terjanyan was doing in the intervening 4 days is not stated. Image
17/ The DAF truck was then driven 434km from Verkhniy Lars to Armavir, a city in Russia's southern Krasnodar Krai region (which lies to the east of Crimea). It arrived at the warehouse of a company called Agro-Business. Image
18/ The company is reportedly owned by Georgy Azatyan, a native of Makiivka (near Donetsk city in occupied eastern Ukraine), and his father Samvel. Another son, Artyom, is a lawyer in Simferopol in Crimea. Image
19/ Artyom reportedly called his father to ask him to accept the cargo for a day on behalf of a friend. This was not communicated to Georgy and the cargo arrived unexpectedly on 6 October. It didn't cause a problem as there was plenty of room in the warehouse.
20/ Terjanyan handed the warehouse operator a pile of invoices but they were not read or signed by the receiver. The cargo was unloaded in the warehouse, where it was to remain overnight.
21/ On the same day, Thursday 6 October, the cargo became the subject of a delivery order posted on ATI (), a Russian freight exchange website, by an Ulyanovsk-based company called TEK-34, with a contact listed as 'Oleg'. ati.su
Image
22/ The cargo was listed as a 'container and packaging'. It was to be delivered to Simferopol, Crimea on 7 October (probably not coincidentally, Vladimir Putin's birthday). The named recipient was a non-existent company supposedly based in Crimea.
23/ TEK-34 seems to have a curious history. It reportedly received good customer reviews between 2009–2020, when it was active, but ceased operating at the end of 2020 when it was sold to a man named Oleg Antipov. It was delisted in 2021 for not having a valid legal address.
24/ In March 2022 it 'came back to life', obtaining a legal address and registering for tax and pensions payments. However, it reportedly did not engage in any activity.
25/ Ten minutes after the job was posted on ATI, Azerbaijan-born truck driver Mahir Yusubov accepted it for a fee of 48,000 rubles ($753). It was removed from ATI shortly afterwards. Yusubov had moved from Kazan to Krasnodar two years ago. He was married and had three children. Image
26/ Prior to taking the job on 6 October, Yusubov had spent all of September driving around the Krasnodar region making deliveries. His movements were recorded on cameras in the region. Image
27/ On 7 October, Yusubov drove from Kanevskoy in the north of the region to Armavir, arriving at the warehouse at lunchtime. The cargo was loaded onto his truck, an International ProStar with 870,000 km on the clock, using the warehouse's mechanical loader. Image
28/ Yusubov was last spotted in Armavir at 16:04. Although the contract required him to deliver the cargo to Simferopol on 7 October, he stopped instead at the village of Svetlyi Put about 99 km from the Crimea Bridge, where he was spotted at 23:06. He likely slept in his truck. Image
29/ Yusubov was next seen in the village of Strelka, en route to the Crimea Bridge, at 05:00 on 8 October. At 05:52 he crossed onto the bridge, and at 06:03 his truck exploded. /end Image
Sources:

















dnevnik.bg/bulgaria/2022/…
dnevnik.bg/sviat/voinata_…
dnevnik.bg/bulgaria/2022/…
newsarmenia.am/news/armenia/v…
facebook.com/petekamutner/p…
bbc.com/russian/news-6…
vlasti.info/news/50453-sta…
vlasti.info/news/50380-sta…
vlasti.info/news/50388-vod…
vlasti.info/news/50580-v_f…
t.me/breakingmash/3…
Summary timeline here:
The reported suspects, according to Russian media:
CCTV video and annotated stills from the Armenians showing the cargo's passage through their country:
Further suspects arrested:
Supplementary thread apparently confirming how the Ukrainians did it:
Source report for the above: nv.ua/ukr/ukraine/ev…

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with ChrisO_wiki

ChrisO_wiki Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @ChrisO_wiki

ChrisO_wiki Profile picture
Mar 2
1/ Russian tourists trapped in Dubai are complaining that they are being screwed over by their (Russian) tour operator, and are being kicked out of their hotels. They say that the Russian Foreign Ministry has been of little help. ⬇️ Image
Image
2/ The Russian Telegram channel Baza reports:

"Hundreds of Russians are being thrown out of hotels in the UAE—tour operators are not extending their stays, forcing them to pay for inflated room rates amid the escalating military conflict."
3/ "Konstantin and his wife told Baza that at the reception desk at Dubai's C Central Resort The Palm, they were told that their tour operator, Biblio-Globus, had not paid for their stay extension and had refused to do so.
Read 11 tweets
ChrisO_wiki Profile picture
Mar 2
1/ Videos of Iranian Shahed drone strikes in the Gulf have been eye-catching, but lack an important nuance: they are less technologically advanced and used differently than Russia's similar Geran-2 drones, as Russian warbloggers point out. ⬇️
2/ The Gulf states, the US and Israel have generally been very effective at shooting down incoming Shaheds, but the few that have got through have caused highly visible localised destruction in US military bases, energy production facilities, and residential buildings.
3/ The prominent Russian Telegram channel Rybar notes that after Russia adopted the Shahed-136, it subsequently made many changes to the design after Ukrainian air defences became more effective at jamming or shooting the drones down: Image
Image
Read 13 tweets
ChrisO_wiki Profile picture
Mar 2
1/ Russian commentators say that the success of Iranian drones – which are less sophisticated than their own – in hitting US and other targets in the Gulf shows that America and Europe have failed to prepare for the threat of Russian drone attacks. ⬇️
2/ 'Archangel Spetsnaz' writes:

"After observing the Iran-US war for the third day, we came to the following conclusions:

The Americans, who were planting military bases around the enemy, were reckless in failing to provide closer cover for their own troops and allies."
3/ "For many years, it was entirely predictable that the Iranians would actively employ jet-powered UAVs, yet the Americans have already let through quite a few strikes.
Read 10 tweets
ChrisO_wiki Profile picture
Mar 2
1/ Russians shouldn't help to defend Iran, suggests Russian journalist and politician Andrei Medvedev. He argues that Iran was a long-time enemy of Russia and more recently merely a fair-weather friend that only ever did what it thought would most benefit it at the time. ⬇️ Image
2/ Medvedev, the Deputy Chairman of the Moscow City Duma and deputy general director of the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK), writes:

"Dear friends, do you know what the "Shia Eight" is? Well, let me remind you."
3/ "These are eight Shia parties in Afghanistan that united in the 1980s to fight the Soviet army, to wage jihad against the USSR. The Nasr Party, the Hezb-e Allah Party, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Afghanistan, the United Front for the Islamic Revolution,…
Read 25 tweets
ChrisO_wiki Profile picture
Mar 2
1/ With Iran facing disastrous losses in its war with the US and Israel, some Russian commentators are attempting to claim it isn't a big deal for Russia. Russian warblogger Sergei Kolyashnikov disagrees and warns: "We'll be next in line after them". ⬇️ Image
2/ Kolyashnikov writes:

"It's strange to see people online saying, "This isn't our war," about Iran. Seriously?

By the end of 2024, Russia ranked first in terms of foreign investment in the Iranian economy, according to the Islamic Republic's ambassador to Moscow, Kazem Jalali.
3/ "The diplomat noted that Russian investment in gas projects in the republic will eventually reach $8 billion.

Incidentally, what happened to Russia's billion-dollar investments in Libya and Syria? Were these "not our" wars either? But oddly enough, that's not the point.
Read 12 tweets
ChrisO_wiki Profile picture
Mar 2
1/ Russia's much-abused mobilised soldiers are no more: they have now reportedly all been forced to sign permanent military contracts, under penalty of death. Russian warbloggers complain that they are being exploited to keep them fighting in Ukraine. ⬇️ Image
2/ In September-October 2022, Russia mobilised 300,000 men in response to its defeat in the Ukrainian counter-offensive in the Kharkiv region. Most of them have since been killed, but thousands still remained in Ukraine by the start of this year.
3/ From late 2025, Russian warbloggers reported that the surviving 'mobiks' were being put under intense pressure, including death threats, to force them to sign contracts. This eliminates their right to be demobilised when the war in Ukraine eventually ends.
Read 17 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

Send Email!

:(