Thread by @WhyToVoteGreen

1. So @AndyWigmore of Leave.EU tweets investigative journalist @CaroleCadwalla to let her know she’s been "tagged” in a tweet from Russia’s embassy in the UK. Let’s have a quick look at the background & semiotics of this… <THREAD>

2. Carole has done great investigative work into links between Leave.EU’s Brexit campaign & Russia. Many of the same actors were working for both #Brexit & Trump – the far-right hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, Cambridge Analytica… theguardian.com/technology/201…

3. Andy Wigmore accompanied Arron Banks to a 6-hr meeting at the Russian Embassy in 2015, invited by a man Banks assumed to be a Russian FSB officer. They gave Ambassador Yakovenko the “inside track” on Brexit. It is not known what was offered in return.
buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/ma…

4. However, it is known that the Internet Research Agency (named in the Mueller indictment) promoted Brexit through fake sockpuppet accounts on social media. A recent study found their impact to have been greater than the two Leave campaigns put together theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/f…

5. Wigmore has denied that Leave.EU’s #Brexit campaign was helped by Russia. He has also denied that it was helped by Cambridge Analytica – despite having earlier admitted this (as has Cambridge Analytica’s director Alexander Nix) buzzfeed.com/jamesball/the-…

6. @Carolecadwalla has also shed light on the links between the Russian Embassy and people named in the #TrumpRussia investigation, such as the Maltese professor Josef Mifsud (also linked to leading Brexiter Boris Johnson) theguardian.com/politics/2017/…

7. Leave.EU has previously tweeted violently aggressive material at @Carolecadwalla - a video showing her being beaten up to the strains of the Russian national anthem (supposedly a “joke”) theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

8. The Russian Embassy’s tweet shows a monstrous America threatening Russia. It implies that the US is Russia’s enemy and Russia is justified in taking hostile action against it. By tagging @CaroleCadwalla, the Russian Embassy is letting her know that it sees her too as an enemy.

9. What happens to journalists in Russia who are seen by Putin’s kleptocracy as enemies? Many of them have been murdered. Anna Politkovskaya, for one theguardian.com/world/2016/oct…

10. Putin's Russia has also been known to target people it sees as enemies in Britain. Alexander Litvinenko (who coined the phrase “Mafia state”) was poisoned with radioactive polonium in London in 2006 theguardian.com/world/2016/jan…

11. So what we have here is @AndyWigmore working hand in glove with Russia, letting a journalist know that she is seen as an enemy by a state that targets journalists.
Why?
Perhaps because Russia assisted the #Brexit campaign & Wigmore is happy to return the favour.

Footnote: Belize, which "patriotic" #Brexit promoter @AndyWigmore represented as a diplomat, is much favoured by Russian organised crime for its money-laundering opportunities. As a Belizean businessman & diplomat, Wigmore has made some "interesting" acquaintances.

Just what is it about men like @AndyWigmore, @Arron_Banks & @Nigel_Farage that makes then such attractive prospects to Putin's agents? This quote from a KGB operative helps explain it. KGB has become FSB, but its methods & cynical assessment of human nature have not changed much.