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ChristoGrozev@bsky.social

@christogrozev

Oct 30, 2022 • 10 tweets • 6 min read • Read on X

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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..

@MDiplomacyWORLD

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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ChristoGrozev@bsky.social

@christogrozev

Oct 4

I've been reporting to @Meta fake profiles that impersonate me on Facebook. Meta refuses to remove the impersonators, for some inscrutable reason considering impersonation of an investigative journalist to *not* be a violation or their terms. This is irresponsible and dangerous.

. Not only did @Meta not remove the impersonators, but are *actively* pushing them to people. This is a fake account created in 2021. Facebook is suggesting to someone to add this fake person as their friend. Just imagine the risks from this irresponsible behavior.

@Meta To my real account, I constantly get unsolicited tips from whistleblowers who trust me. Imagine what would happen if/when a whistleblower contacts a fake account created by a bad state actor. @Meta is not simply helping spread disinformation, it's actively endangering lives.

Read 4 tweets

ChristoGrozev@bsky.social

@christogrozev

Sep 30

Pavel Durov, Telegram's founder, claims he was poisoned in 2018 (symptoms he describes are indeed are consistent with nerve agents/organoposphates). He chose "not to tell my colleagues so I wouldn't scare them"

I believe him this happened. Sadly, he didn't volunteer information on where this happened (I wish he had, so we could triangulate the usual suspects - in 2018 he was a MAJOR thorn in the side of Russian authorities). But thanks to leaked databases we can have some guesses.

Based on leaked travel data, he spent most of the time in 2018 in Dubai, interspersed with stays in Switzerland, France and the UK. Interestingly (likely coincidentally), he left the UK for Dubai a day after the Skripal poisoners left London for Moscow.

Read 6 tweets

ChristoGrozev@bsky.social

@christogrozev

Jul 23

In our new investigation into Russia's use of children for their military drone program, crucial evidence came from @tashurkevich's undercover phone calls. Here are some of the most striking confessions she extracted.

What are the tasks assigned to the kids? Well they sound like things from Ender's Game (link to full investigation here: )

Here Tatsiana calls "Maksim" who explains the kids' "oath of silence" in mentioning the war.

Read 6 tweets

ChristoGrozev@bsky.social

@christogrozev

Jun 19

If anyone had any doubts about the subvertive nature of Chinese AI freebies, here's a good example.
I decided to ask @deepseek_ai to do a mundane job: edit the text of a recent @the_ins_ru article to make it more vocal-delivery friendly, so we can record it as a podcast. SFSG.

Here's the beginning of the original article that DeepSeek totally promised would not alter, but for style edits

And here's the offered text that I almost choked while reading out to my daughter.

Read 6 tweets

ChristoGrozev@bsky.social

@christogrozev

May 10

NBC reports that, shockingly, during his latest Moscow pilgrimage Witkoff met with Putin and his two negotiators alone and without his own interpreter, relying - in breach of protocol - on a locally present one. . However, this seems half the problem (1/n)nbcnews.com/world/russia/r…

Here's the video released by the Kremlin. It clearly shows Witkoff pointing at the young woman and asking "Interpreter?", to which Putin & Co say "yes". Following that, cryptically Witkoff asks "from Embassy?", to which he again gets a confirmation.

So what embassy is the interpreter from? Obviously there's no Russian embassy in Moscow (unless Witkoff thinks so), so a logical conclusion is that he was assured she was, hm, sent by or approved by the US embassy? Anyway, let's look at who she is.

Read 10 tweets

ChristoGrozev@bsky.social

@christogrozev

Mar 19

https://twitter.com/Kosta881/status/1902290659077202223

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.

https://twitter.com/Kosta881/status/1902290659077202223

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"

Read 4 tweets

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