🧵EXCLUSIVE: Docs obtained by @RFERL show that the UN's nuclear watchdog funded scientific research in Crimea by Russia-based institutes without Ukraine's permission - and despite the UN's recognition of the peninsula as Ukrainian:

A short thread.

/1rferl.org/a/iaea-ukraine… The UN officially recognizes Russia-occupied Crimea as Ukrainian, & it rejected Moscow's 2014 land grab in a General Assembly resolution. IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has also said his agency is committed to the UN principle that "national borders are not to be changed by force."
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🧵Fascinating text messages between a Russian operative & his FSB handlers on stoking US political discord have surfaced in a US criminal case, my @RFERL colleagues @Mike_Eckel, @pustota & @kromark have found. Links to Eng and Ru stories at end.

A handful of excerpts below.

/1 The chats were entered into court record in case of 4 US political activists in Florida charged with helping Russia sow US political strife. The chats are between operative Aleksandr Ionov, who funded Maria Butina's legal fees, & his FSB handlers:

/2cbsnews.com/news/helping-r…

🧵🧵🧵
This US civil forfeiture case vs. sanctioned Russian tycoon Suleiman Kermiov's alleged $300M yacht should be intriguing. The ex-Rosneft boss claiming in US court that HE is the real owner is ALSO the purported proxy owner of Putin's superyacht:

/1 rferl.org/a/russia-super…


Back in May 2022, authorities in Fiji seized the superyacht Amadea under a US warrant as part of an enforcement action against Kerimov, whom the US sanctioned in 2018. Below you can see the the yacht being seized.

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🚨🚨A fresh investigation by @RFERL's @cxemu & Systema into the fake Russian private military company known as Redut:

Internal docs & interviews with recruiters show the Redut network operating in Russia's war on Ukraine is a GRU front. A short🧵

(1/8) rferl.org/a/redut-fake-r…
Our @cxemu reporters obtained exclusive internal documents & videos from a Redut unit known as the Wolves, which participated in Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The Wolves are one of ca. 20 armed formations known to have links to the GRU's Redut network.

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Our @RFERL & @SvobodnaEvropa team has dropped a doc on explosions at Bulgarian arms depots linked to Russian sabotage. But here's a 🧵on one they HAVEN’T linked to Russia: deadly blasts at a depot near the eastern Bulgarian town of Straldzha in 2012.

/1 In 2021, after Czechia accused Skripal's Novichok poisoners in a deadly 2014 arms-depot blast, Bulgarian prosecutors linked Russian nationals to 4 cases of blasts+fires at Bulgarian arms depots allegedly aimed at disrupting exports to Ukraine & Georgia. web.archive.org/web/2021042914…
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🧵Here's the final installment of our series on Putin in the 90s. It's about a journalist who dug into Putin's past for an article titled “Lieutenant Colonel Putin Illegally Heads Up FSB” - and was beaten to death a week after publication: rferl.org/a/putin-journa…

A thread:

/1 You've likely never heard of Anatoly Levin-Utkin. Maybe you came across his name in lists by media-watchdogs (like @pressfreedom) of journalists killed in Russia. But there's virtually no public information about him beyond those little snippets: cpj.org/data/people/an…

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Part 4 of our series on Putin's time as a Petersburg official in the 1990s: rferl.org/a/putin-cheney…

We found rare docs detailing the work of Putin's External Relations Committee & are releasing them in full.

A thread on their contents - including a meeting with Liz Cheney:

/1 The docs we dug up in a St. Petersburg archive consist of reports & bulletins on the work of Putin's External Relations Committee, whose shady deals led city lawmakers to call for Putin's firing in 1992.

We didn't find any bombshells in the docs, but lots of curiosities.

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For history buffs interested in Putin's early years: Part 3 of our series has dropped. It's about how his St. Petersburg committee backed a scam to hawk a mythical & supposedly secret compound called "red mercury" to foreign buyers: rferl.org/a/putin-scam-r…

Now, a thread:

/1 Rumors of the incredible properties of the supposedly Soviet-developed "red mercury" appear to have emerged sometime in the late 1970s, and they persist to this day (read @cjchivers' excellent piece on how ISIS was trying to get its hands on it): nytimes.com/2015/11/22/mag…

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In our 1st installment of @CurrentTimeTv+@SvobodaRadio's project on scandals surrounding Putin & Co. in the early 1990s, we brought you the Case Of The Missing Ton Of Cocaine.

Today, we dive into bribery in the city committee Putin ran: rferl.org/a/putin-bribe-…

A thread:

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https://twitter.com/CarlSchreck/status/1527216818133291008

BACKGROUND: In June 1991, Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) Mayor Anatoly Sobchak appointed Putin to lead the city's External Relations Committee (see decree below). This gave Putin major sway/access as foreigners sought to set up shop & make $$ there.

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Ever heard of the metric ton of Colombian cocaine that ex-KGB in St. Petersburg seized in '93, when Putin was deputy mayor? No? Well here's our - if I do say, wild - longread w/@kromark & @Soshnikoff: rferl.org/a/putin-cocain…

Now, a thread on what happened with all that blow.
/1 In 1992, an Israeli gang decided to ship 1,092 kilos of Cali Cartel cocaine from Colombia to Finland and then to Russia by road. The end destination was W. Europe -- Russia was just an attractive entry point due to corruption & smugglers' connections.
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THREAD on some OSINT methods we used to establish that Kemerovo Governor Sergei Tsivilyov was speaking at an OMON riot-police base in Novokuznetsk when locals accused the gov of "deceiving" young Russian men deployed in Ukraine invasion (story here: rferl.org/a/russian-sold…)

/1 Background: Russian OMON riot police & SOBR (special rapid-reaction) officers have been killed/captured in Ukraine - including from the city of Novokuznetsk in Siberia's Kuzbass (Kemerovo) region (). But regional authorities have kept mum about it.

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THREAD: With @RFERL & its affiliates (incl. @SvobodaRadio & @CurrentTimeTv) blocked in Russia along w. many other outlets, here's a rundown (not exhaustive) of some outstanding investigative work by our Russia team in recent years, some of which I had honor of working on.

/1 Sergei Khazov-Cassia exposed the theft of untold amounts of oil from Russia's pipeline network with the complicity of corrupt police & FSB officers - costing Russian taxpayers untold amounts of revenue.

Rus: svoboda.org/a/russia-oil-p…

Eng: rferl.org/a/russia-oil-p…

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For journos, academics, & researchers focusing on Russia: a thread with a grab bag of data/info that could now get your source(s) branded as "foreign agents."

First off: Leaks on criminal probes underway by FSB or military investigators.

https://twitter.com/CarlSchreck/status/1443800874418163712

2. "Information about problems...slowing down the development" of Roscosmos. (cc: @mattb0401)

A thread, w/basic OSINT tips, on our investigation on Russian network behind murky drive to sow Pfizer-vax doubts in EU.

Короче, seems they've tried to hide some of their tracks. (More on that below)

Eng: rferl.org/a/russia-pfize…

Rus: svoboda.org/a/31276679.html

/1 The network involves a constellation of UK & Russian firms with names like Fazze, AdNow, 2WTrade, Brand.ad, Darix, & Adcombo. They're linked to Yulia Serebryanskaya, an erstwhile political consultant for the ruling United Russia party.

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One year ago today, money launderer Aierken Saimaiti was shot dead in Istanbul. For months he had been providing records to reporters on hundreds of millions of $$ flowing out of Kyrgyzstan. Leaked police records reveal new details on how he was killed. rferl.org/a/man-who-expo… Saimaiti was the key source in an expose of corruption in the Kyrgyz customs service by @RFERL, @OCCRP & @kloopnews. The leaked records indicate his killers may have already been on his tail when he met a reporter in Istanbul two weeks before his murder. rferl.org/a/30284703.html

A short thread on one of the mysteries we were unable to crack in our investigation of Girkin's death panel in E. Ukraine: the identity of "Advokat". rferl.org/a/the-executio… Advokat's signature is all over the "trial" docs that @ChristopherJM recovered from Girkin's headquarters in Slovyansk in July 2014. Here it is on the "confession" of one of the executed men.