A short 🧵 on how Russian intelligence launders fake news by using helpful EU "media".
A leading headline in Russian state media today is that "Poland plans to capture Western Ukraine and hold a referendum". The cited source is "the Belgian portal Modern Democracy".
Indeed, three days ago the Greek-owned portal "Modern Democracy" published an article with verbatim the same allegations. moderndiplomacy.eu/2022/10/27/pol….
The site ModernDemocracy.eu indeed exists, it's not flagged as a fake news site, it's editor in chief has a thriving LinkedIn profile and we even share 6 contacts, one of whom has endorsed him.
So all seems legit so far. Until you scroll down to the end of the Polish-occupation article, and see that it's in fact a reprint of a contribution by something called International Affairs. Clicking on the link you are taken to site of Russia's MFA.
Then you notice that the Russian government publication is not source 0, but itself reprints a translation from a Polish language website called Dziennik Polityczny. dziennik-polityczny.com/2022/10/19/hie…
So you wonder what Polish media would come up with this nonsense.. and then you look up it's editor in chief Adam Kamiński never existed, And the photo used for his profile was , does not exist, and his fake account uses a photo of an unsuspecting Lithuanian orthopedist.
Here are two good investigations into the so-called Polish portal en.rebaltica.lv/2017/05/who-pu…, oko.press/portal-z-falsz…
Tl;dr: it totally makes up fake news, fake interviews and fake people, all to push a Russian narrative.
Thus, a so-called "Invaluable platform for assessing complex international issues" became a willing accomplice in laundering a story from a fake news site, passed via a Russian government disinformation site, to be presented to the Russian people as "Belgium sourced info". 👍
Then again..
Interestingly (or not), almost every article on @MDiplomacyWORLD that relates to Russia/Ukraine is written by authors who write for Russian Intel information operations.
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Serbian opposition activists post photo of what is alleged to be a police Jeep with a mounted long range acoustic device. Visual and audio evidence already seen from open sources is compatible with the use of such devices. If this photo is verified then there's no doubt anymore.
This is especially ridiculous given that Russia's man in Belgrade, Deputy PM Aleksandar Vulin, publicly thanked Russian intelligence for "helping quash color revolution attempts" in Serbia. I.e. any use of sonic weapon would've been coordinated with/done by RU intel to begin with
And a reminder that Unit 29155 of GRU, whose members are very frequent visitors to Belgrade, spent years researching "potential capabilities of non-lethal acoustic weapon in urban warfare"
BREAKING: the House sub-committee on intelligence says "now convinced that foreign adversary behind AHI (Havana syndrome) incidents", "Intelligence community has hindered the subcommittee's efforts" to get to the truth.
The Subcommittee is aware that the IC continues to withhold valuable information from the Subcommittee. For this reason, a final unclassified report cannot be issued at this time. In addition, the Subcommittee plans to issue a classified report that explains why the Subcommittee finds the conclusions reached in the ICA dubious at best, and misleading at worst. It is not possible, in an unclassified format, to detail the full scale and scope of the Subcommittee’s investigation, as well as the findings that have resulted from this investigation. Nevertheless, it is the hope of the Subcommittee that this interim unclassified report will shed light on the need to better understand AHIs and the toll they have taken on the IC workforce.
The Subcommittee found that the process resulting in the ICA, titled “Updated Assessment on Anomalous Health Incidents,” which is often used to portray a consensus discounting foreign adversary involvement in AHIs, lacked analytic integrity and was highly irregular in its formulation. The Subcommittee’s investigation has uncovered information illustrative of problems with the ICA’s creation, review, and release. Some of these problems may include a rush to convey a consensus amongst elements of the IC in an effort to control the narrative with the American public, policymakers, foreign partners and adversaries, and IC employees.
This must be the funniest Russian Intel failure I have seen. It's 'Allo 'allo level. The FBI read the Whatsapp (!) chats between FSB's Col. Popov and his asset Ionov, and indicted them. And the two continued to discuss the indictment...on Whatsapp!!!
DOJ indicted today RT's employee Konstantin Kalashnikov for organizing illicit dissemination of fake news aiming to poison the domestic US election debate. Aptly, his Facebook profile is named "Novichok"
Born in Donetsk, Ukraine, Konstiantyn/Konstantin was the (adopted) son of Donetsk's deputy mayor who sided with the Russian invaders in 2014. Here, the two in a "Dolce & Gabanna family" photo they posted on the Dolce & Gabanna website for a competition.
Travel record show that while working for RT and living in Russia, Konstantin used his visa-advantageous Ukrainian passport to travel throughout Europe, the UK, and made 4 trips the US West Coast between 2016 and 2021. How he got a US visa given his background is interesting.
Because this "story" is getting some undue attention, I will explain how it first came to my attention and why I concluded it was not true (and helped some colleagues not rush with a misleading scoop).
I was on vacation 2 weeks ago when I got a message from @JulianRoepcke. He had gotten an incredible scoop from an anonymous source, but - as responsible journalists should do - needed to be 100% certain that the story can be validated. He asked me for a second opinion.
The "source" claimed that he had seen a person very similar to the pilot Maxim Kuzminov observing an airshow in Czechia, and commenting to his bodyguard in Russian. The bodyguard addressed him as "Max". All very convincing so far.
Putin has called an emergency meeting of the Russian security council today. While Russia's MoD has not yet acknowledged Ukraine's counter-incursion into Russia, Russian military telegram bloggers are sounding alarm (chart w/ scale of incursion from one of the telegram channels)
The MoD just came up with this bullsjit statement.
Putin says "the enemy has launched a large scale provocation". He expects the FSB to report to him soon what's happening, meantime orders locK authorities to take care of people.
Well, at least that settles the dispute whether it's small vs large scale.