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Michael Weiss

@michaeldweiss

Mar 31

New: We obtained phone calls between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó showing them conspiring to lift EU sanctions on Russia -- from oligarchs to banks to the shadow fleet. Full story with consortium partners at @InsiderEng: theins.press/en/inv/290911

“If you remove names and show these conversations to any case officer, he will swear that this is a transcript of an intelligence officer working his asset,” one senior European intelligence officer said after reviewing a printout of the conversations.

.@VSquare_Project: vsquare.org/kremlin-hotlin…

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Michael Weiss

@michaeldweiss

Mar 13

NEW: Following the embarrassing lapses of Unit 29155, the GRU created a new, bespoke assassination and sabotage unit known as Center 795, meant to be "air-gapped" against compromise. Its top operative, Denis Alimov, is now in a jail cell in Colombia awaiting extradition to the U.S. because he used Google Translate to task his Serbian hitman. The FBI had everything in real time. And we've just burned the rest of Putin's brand new black ops squad. theins.press/en/inv/290235

The hitman, Darko Durovic, was surveilling members of the Zakaev family, Chechen dissidents living in Europe. Durovic even used search engines to look for the murder weapon, typing in "Glock 17," "Glock 21," "Glock 22" — and where to obtain a 22 in Podgorica, Montenegro. He traveled to New York as part of his tasking by Center 795's Denis Alimov, the man sitting in the clink in Bogota, a 42 year-old bodybuilder on steroids, who, judging from his Telegram posts, suffers from a common side effect of juicing: man-boobs.

Center 795 fields approximately 500 officers divided into three directorates. The organizational blueprint – corroborated by staffing spreadsheets and a separate internal org chart obtained by The Insider the — describes a fully self-contained combined-arms formation capable, in theory, of conducting independent military and intelligence operations without external support.

Many come from elite units, such as FSB Alfa, GRU Spetsnaz, Putin's FSO and Rosgvardia. A unique addition to this hodgepodge composition is a non-Russian one: the Belarusian KGB.

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Michael Weiss

@michaeldweiss

Mar 8

New with @60Minutes: A whistleblower from the Global Health Incident Cell (GHIC), the secret CIA unit that investigated Havana Syndrome, says he believes the Russian intelligence services are behind directed energy attacks on Americans. .theins.press/en/inv/290088

“John Thorne” (not his real name) had first-hand experience dealing with a cornerstone case of AHI, in Central Asia. He says the GHIC was determined to disprove AHI was real or that a foreign adversary was responsible for it.

The device the U.S. acquired over a year ago: it fires pulsed microwaves, it is portable, and it is programmable for distance and intensity. Its beams can penetrate windows and drywall. Not only does it have critical Russian components, it was purchased by U.S. operatives from a “complex Russian criminal network.”

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Michael Weiss

@michaeldweiss

Feb 10

Estonian Foreign Intelligence's annual report is out. Some highlights to follow:

Very clear message to the U.S., which seems intent on ignoring it: Russia is using "peace" talks as a tool for manipulation. While still viewing the U.S. as a main adversary, Russia's state institutions have been instructed to adopt a spirit of openness to cooperation. Why? Because restoring diplomatic relations and resuming direct flights will facilitate espionage, influence operations and the flow of sanctioned goods into Russia.

Moscow's targeting of European countries is meant to split the U.S. from its closest allies and use economic warfare -- via the proposed joint investment fund for Ukraine -- to stop Kyiv's Westward trajectory.

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Michael Weiss

@michaeldweiss

Jan 14

I read everything Dexter Filkins writes and so should you. His profile of Marco Rubio is no exception. I'll share a few highlights in this thread:

During the campaign I said J.D. Vance seemed like the sort of populist redneck a gaggle of South African tech bros might cook up in a Silicon Valley laboratory. Almost AI-generated. Anti-charismatic. Awkward in the extreme. And a hard sell absent the Trump juggernaut. Well, lookee here. Vance is not "a guy's guy" like Rubio. Trump thinks he's a bit weird, a bit wussy, and highly unlikeable. He even has buyer's remorse picking Vance as VP. The Maduro op and the past and future military action Iran show Marco's stock is up, J.D.'s is down. Vance gets to own the mess in Minnesota. Rubio gets to be viceroy of Caracas.

Here's a little something special from Sen. Mike Rounds, who not only confirms Rubio's call to his former Senate colleagues at the Halifax Security Forum last November, but emphasizes that the Dmitriev-Witkoff plan was really the Dmitriev plan: "... we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives." Indeed. And it was laundered, Rounds might have added, through a gullible press corp, which relied on Dmitriev, Witkoff and Kushner as sources (this when Witkoff played an active role in deceiving the same press corp about supposed daylight between Trump and Netanyahu on striking Iran) and didn't bother asking why the Secretary of State/NSA or CIA director were written out of a coalescing U.S. deal with Russia. Those sorts of things demand inter-agency buy-in. Instead, amateur diplomats made an end-run around the actual diplomat, and Rubio got his retaliation in by letting a group of bipartisan legislators do it for him. He then initiated a de-Russification process of Dmitriev's 28-point plan in Geneva, and lo and behold it's now a Ukrainian-coauthored 20-point plan, certified by Witkoff and Kushner and Trump in successive rounds in Florida. The Russians will inevitably reject it and more or less have already. This was very well played.

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Michael Weiss

@michaeldweiss

Jan 12

Well, well, well.

"A number of months ago, the U.S. captured a weapon that has been associated with Havana Syndrome. Both said it was seized by U.S. Special Forces during an operation...the weapon is under the Defense Department’s Intelligence & Security unit." sashaingber.substack.com/p/exclusive-us…

CNN now reports the device linked to Havana Syndrome was purchased by Homeland Security in the waning days of the Biden administration. And DoD has spent a year testing it. It has Russian components and fits in a backpack. cnn.com/2026/01/13/pol…

Two years ago, @InsiderEng, in collaboration with @60Minutes and @derspiegel, published a lengthy investigation into Havana Syndrome, and found links to GRU Unit 29155. You can read it here: theins.ru/en/politics/27…

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