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Christo Grozev Profile picture
Christo Grozev
@christogrozev
Investigative journalist, radio investor and hobby coder. Immediate blocks for whataboutism.
XYZ Contagion Profile picture eDo Profile picture Adam Smithee Profile picture Nancy Profile picture Aviva Gabriel Profile picture 123 subscribed
Apr 3 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
In addressing the Havana Syndrome controversy, I'd stick to the old golden triangle for crime investigations: who had the Motive, Means and Opportunity - and if a suspect is found, does s/he have an Alibi (short thread) In his February 2012 "election" platform essay, Putin wrote: Image
Nov 30, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Our friends at @agents_media used recently hacked Russian airline booking data to prove what Polish authorities have claimed all along: that "Pablo Gonzales", aka Pavel Rubtsov, is in fact a GRU operative. They found joint flight bookings between him and GRU officer Sergey Turbin What I can add is that Sergey Turbin is not just any GRU operative (as seen from his address registration at the GRU academy); he belongs to GRU's 5th Department, i.e. the one running the illegals program. His phone number appears in call records of members of the 5th department.
Aug 23, 2023 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Russian telegram channels show (graphic) video of wreckage of plane on which Prigozhin and Utkin/Wagner were registered to have flown. Still anticipating evidence that Prigozhin did fly on that plane (and didn't just send a decoy). and a video of the falling plane with 10 passengers on board (competing narratives in Russian channels of "two S300 missiles" vs "bomb on board" circulating for now).
Aug 19, 2023 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
I keep getting asked what's going to happen with PMC Wagner. My answer usually is "no one knows, not even Prigozhin or Putin", but there are a few things that can be put on the record for the time being, based both on leaks by in-fighting clans, ex-mercs, & phone data (short 🧵) First, a reminder of the context: at the start of the war, Wagner was not invited to the table. On the assumption of a quick victory for 🇷🇺, generals at MoD and GRU set up their own PMC, both to seize control away from Prigozhin, but also to dip into the (corrupt) funding flows.
Aug 4, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Russian channels report three naval drones attacked the Crimea bridge (official reports claim drones were destroyed), but another drone reported hitting an oil tanker approx 30 miles from the bridge...which may have been the real 🎯? Image Indeed, the Sig oil tanker that Russian channels report was hit, was in the right place near the bridge and appears to have shuttled oil between Crimea and Syria, worked for Russian armed forces and was thus a legitimate military target.
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Jul 24, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Russian media report that a drone attacked buildings near Komsomolsky prospect 17 in Moscow; traffic down this avenue has been closed. What is interesting is that this address is just across from the headquarters of GRU's cyber offense (incl. FancyBear), among other mil. units Image At this location is also the Military University () and several top-secret GRU facilities, including the head of their illegals program. If Ukraine hit that building complex, the symbolic damage to MoD/GRU will be very significant.vumo.mil.ru
May 2, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
IYMI: @agents_media report GRU illegal Pablo Gonzales, aka Pavel Rubsov (detained in Poland last year) was able to infiltrate the Boris Nemtsov Foundation, befriended its key members and stole and reported to Center data about their activities:

agents.media/gonzalez/ This Kremlin special operation was particularly disgusting, given the Kremlin was implicated in the killing of Boris Nemstov bellingcat.com/news/2022/03/2… and then used a spy to befriend his orphaned daughter, betray her trust and steal data from her.
Mar 25, 2023 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
FBI indicated Sergey Cherkasov, the Russian illegal whom we had earlier identified as a GRU spy. However, the indictment contains one new proof of that affiliation that FBI seem to have missed. The clue is contained in the passport number Cherkasov used to enter Brazil in 2011. That passport number is not random. It's part of a series of passport numbers reserved for GRU spies. In fact, it is part of the very first such batch of numbers, issued to many GRU spies in 2009. Every two years, the GRU issues its spies new passports from a new series...
Feb 27, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
I have often said this is one of Russia's least intelligent "diplomats". He keeps quoting GRU and troll farm troll account, apparently oblivious he is burning them as he goes along. This one is a perfect exemplar. The account he burned this time was created in September 2020. It appeared to be an anti-Trump and "slice of Americana" account... Except, it also was interested in that big unknown country that it knows little about, but feels is somehow misrepresented in the West...
Dec 26, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Loud explosions at Russia's strategic military airfield at Engels, more than 600 km from the Ukrainian border. Another angle of the explosions. #Baza reports at least three dead, a fire encompassing 120 sq m as of now.
Dec 18, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Such an illiterate sentence. It may have two completely different meanings. On the substance of it, this new rule is likely to run afoul of at least EU competition regulation and the Digital Services Act. There's no way a ban on cross linking (especially to newer/smaller platforms) will be legal under EU law.
Dec 5, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
The new and improved AI chatbot is quite something. Omg. this is pretty good. "Write a song about @bellingcat"
Nov 28, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Russia's GRU spy was caught by the Dutch and sentenced to 15 years by the Brazilians. Now Russia fabricated a ridiculously inept criminal case against him to try to have him extradited. Read up here. I have many nuggets from this botched-up extradition story, but my favorite must be how the police "investigator" who was told to just insert a Cherkasov into the old criminal file wasn't really told if he was a man or a woman: so he seemed to assume it was a woman:
Nov 17, 2022 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
The verdict in the #MH17 case is being pronounced, and the court is already making a clear case that the armed invasion in 2014 was controlled by the Kremlin, and thus responsible for the shoot-down. Very likely thus today's verdicts will not be the last, or most important ones. "The court has ascertained that the Russian Federation coordinated military actions in the DPR, finanzed and provided weapons to the militants, but also undertook military actions on its own. Russia was in full control of the DPR"
Nov 5, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Today it's GRU day in Russia. My personal wishes on this important day to Chepiga, Mishkin and their 100s of colleagues whose personal, and often intimate, details we now know better than their spouses do. С праздником! .@Dobrokhotov, after 6 years of joint investigations into GRU operations, what are your 3 most memorable moments?
Nov 1, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
A micro-thread on a whole new level of Kremlin route of disinfo laundering & manipulation.
1. UK media publish story that Liz Truss's phone was hacked. The hack was apparently discovered "during the summer", and was hushed by PM Boris Johnson bbc.in/3zsFqzL . 2. All-round conspiracy boy @KimDotcom posts either a sarcastic or purposely misleading tweet saying Truss sent message to Blinken saying "it's done" a minute after Nord Stream pipeline blew up, and that's how Russia found out.
Oct 30, 2022 • 10 tweets • 6 min read
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". ImageImage Indeed, three days ago the Greek-owned portal "Modern Democracy" published an article with verbatim the same allegations. moderndiplomacy.eu/2022/10/27/pol…. Image
Oct 28, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Watching Nothing New on the Western Front while arguing in telegram with Russian soldiers in Ukraine about the inevitability of their demise. "don't bury us yet, this may be the demise or Britain instead. We can be in London soon".. and then this scene comes up. "At least we do not live boring lives" as the last line of defense for this war.
Oct 28, 2022 • 21 tweets • 7 min read
Breaking: Norwegian authorities named the real identity of the fake "Brazilian researcher": his name is Mikhail Mikhushin, born 1978. This announcement is in line with what we, together with our investigative partners, had already discovered, and I will add some more details: As a reminder, his cover identity was José Assis Giammaria (born 1984). It was clear that that was a fake identity, as we found that he first appeared on the horizon with that ID in 2006, when he applied for Brazilian passport and social security number claiming a BR mother.
Oct 25, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Wow. Norway arrested a "Brazilian" university researcher at University of Tromso, who studied "hybrid threats". The catch? He's a Russian spy, not a Brazilian professor. More to come soon.
vg.no/nyheter/innenr… The researcher apparently graduated from the Center for Military Studies in Calgary. Also, implausibly, he worked on a hybrid-threats university project called "The Grey Zone" facebook.com/CMSS.Calgary/p…
Oct 24, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
When I first confronted one of the missile programmers months ago, I asked him how he sleeps at night after what he does. He snapped back: "Be professional. Ask a professional question". I asked him why they kill so many civilians. He wrote "You know well I can't answer this". Mind you, he seemed the nicest of them all. A guy who tweeted about the latest Hollywood movies, organized fashionista parties, had a hipstery beard, and listened to cool music. But clearly, he treated killing people as a day job.