New "Karl" thread, the first since the U.S. election, with @holger_r: "RU is pushing hard on 2-3 fronts. On the Kursk front, they have managed to gain control over a third of the territory occupied by UA. I don’t see RU being able to push UA out of Kursk within this year or by the time Trump takes office on Jan 20. Their pace of progress is slow everywhere on the front."

New insights from "Karl," the Estonian military analyst, as told to @holger_r and me: 🧵 "Last time, we discussed that the situation near Vuhledar had become critical for UA. By now, it has been abandoned. In summary, RU's offensive toward Vuhledar began a year ago with an attack on Novomykhailivka. The situation in Vuhledar itself started to become uncomfortable a few months ago."

New "Karl" analysis on the latest in Ukraine, with @holger_r: 🧵 "In Kursk, the UA offensive developed further (since last time we spoke), and in total UA managed to conquer as much territory as RU had conquered in eastern Ukraine since the beginning of the year. This was done in the first 2 weeks of the operation."

DoJ announcing now: Cyber threat group Cadet Blizzard is Unit 29155. 📷Fbi.gov/wanted/cyber/g… More about them here and their use of justiceua[dot]org: microsoft.com/en-us/security…

Latest from "Karl," @holger_r's and my favorite Estonian military analyst, on developments in the war: "Let’s start with the situation on the eastern front as it is still the most painful and problematic for Ukraine. Russian pressure and forward movement toward Pokrovske and Toretsk continue there. Russia has very small daily advances there but it is still worrying that Ukraine hasn’t been able to put a stop to it."

The European Federation of Journalists is celebrating the release of "Pablo Gonzalez" and equating him with Evan Gershkovich and Vladimir Kara-Murza. This is not only ridiculous in light of the swap, it is dangerous. Gonzalez is a GRU operative whose real name is Pavel Rubtsov. He was detained by Polish intelligence in Feb. 2022. Short🧵europeanjournalists.org/blog/2024/08/0… According on leaked travel data obtained and reported on by @agents_media, Rubtsov traveled with GRU officer Sergei Turbin, who belongs to the service's Fifth Department, which handles GRU "illegals" (spies working outside of diplomatic cover). agents.media/sledivshij-za-…

NEW: @InsiderEng and its partners @lemondefr and @derspiegel have identified the French chef arrested on suspicion of working for Russian intelligence to disrupt the Paris Olympics. Meet Kirill Griaznov, a Cordon Bleu-trained chef, reality TV star and FSB officer. We have his emails. Oh, and he's been to New York too! theins.press/en/politics/27… The Perm-born Griaznov has resided in France for 14 years. He only decided to become a chef suddenly in 2010 after years working as a lawyer for financial services companies. While in Luxembourg, he met Lord Robert Skidelsky, a British peer. He was very excited about this and wanted to meet Skidelsky again in Moscow. Skidelsky seemed keen.

NEW: With our partner @derspiegel, @InsiderEng has obtained a secret SVR plan -- "Operation Kylo" -- to weaken pro-Ukrainian sentiment in the West, using "fear," "panic" and "horror" as psycho-emotional triggers. theins.press/en/politics/27… The architect of this operation is a 20-year veteran of Russia's foreign intelligence service, Mikhail Kolesov. He acknowledges Russia's total failure in the propaganda war with the West since the full-scale invasion and proposes clever new active measures to undermine support for Ukraine.

New "Karl" thread on the latest Ukraine developments, with @holger_r: 🧵 "Since we last spoke in May, there haven’t been substantial changes on the frontline. Russia is still pressing but without remarkable results. The pressure is heaviest on the eastern front near Pokrovske, west from Avdiivka."

🧵 An interesting data set from a group of Western aviation experts, one of whom I'll quote in this short thread. Between May 3 and June 15, Russia dropped no fewer than 64 FAB glide bombs on… Belgorod, Russia. In other words, almost every day for a month and a half, Russia has been bombing itself. Not intentionally, of course. But why? There are several reasons.

🧵New thread from "Karl," the Estonian military analyst, on the state of play in Ukraine, with @holger_r: "The most significant development since we last spoke is of course the U.S aid package. Without this, the situation would have grown very critical for Ukraine by autumn."

It's been a minute, but we have a new thread from "Karl," the Estonian military analyst, on the war in Ukraine. With @holger_r: "Let’s start with the strategic view first. The U.S. has grown even more cautious and inept. Congress is exactly at the same place as the last time we spoke. For a brief moment, 1-2 weeks ago, it looked like they might be closer to a deal but today there is no certainty about it."

NEW: A yearlong investigation by @InsiderEng, @60Minutes and @derspiegel has uncovered evidence suggesting that Havana Syndrome may have its origin in the use of directed energy weapons wielded by the Russian GRU’s infamous Unit 29155.  theins.press/en/politics/27… The Insider et al. have obtained intercepted Russian intelligence documents, travel logs, and call metadata, along with eyewitness testimony that challenges the US intelligence community assessment that it’s “very unlikely” Havana Syndrome is the work of a foreign adversary.

NEW: Jan Marsalek, the fugitive COO of disgraced company Wirecard, wasn't just behind Germany's biggest financial fraud in history. @InsiderEng can now reveal he was also a GRU agent for a decade. theins.press/en/politics/26… Marsalek been living in Russia for more than four years, using a passport that belongs to an Orthodox priest from Lipetsk, Father Konstantin Baiazov. We have the fake passport.

Best thing you'll read all weekend, on CIA-HUR cooperation. I'll highlight the key bits below: nytimes.com/2024/02/25/wor… CIA "put in the plumbing" for a massive partnership with HUR, Ukrainian military intelligence, around 2015, after Poroshenko's election and the appoint of Gen. Valeriy Kondratyuk, formerly the head of CI at SBU, as HUR chief.

Estonia's foreign intelligence report is out. A few highlights to follow 🧵: raport.valisluureamet.ee/2024/en/ "Russia has managed to recruit at least as many contract soldiers as needed to compensate for losses on the battlefield and create some new units, such as the 40th Army Corps and the 25th Combined Arms Army, both of which, however, are reported to be understaffed."

Exclusive: Andrey Kharchenko, one of the Russian attendees of a much-scrutinized 2018 meeting in a Moscow hotel with Lega leader Matteo Salvini's right-hand, is an FSB Fifth Service officer, @the_ins_ru today reveals. The meeting was to negotiate Russian funding of Lega. The principal Italian at that event was Gianluca Savoini, Salvini's "sherpa to Russia." Savoini constantly travels to Russia, sometimes for no more than a day. He was a big reason Lega signed a partnership agreement with Putin's United Russia in 2017.

Exclusive: Putin’s assassination and terrorism squad behind the Skripal poisoning and bombings across Europe has also infiltrated Russian NGOs including @Kasparov63’s, @InsiderEng reveals. GRU Unit 29155 has “illegals” spying within and without Russia: theins.ru/en/politics/26… They’ve posed as human rights activists, documentary filmmakers and trade journalists. One has even spied under his legal name, Konstantin Medvedev.

Exclusive: A controversial aide to Bundestag deputy Eugen Schmidt, of Germany's far-right AfD party, is an agent of Russian intelligence. Oh, and his handler raps! theins.press/en/politics/26… As @InsiderEng and our partner @derspiegel reported in August, Vladimir Sergienko, 52, a Lviv-born German parliamentary aide, had been communicating with a certain suspected FSB operative named "Alexei." Alexei, we've discovered, is Ilya Vechtomov, 36ish, an officer of the FSB.

Exclusive: Tatjana Zdanoka, a Latvian member of the European Parliament, has been an agent of Russian intelligence for at least twenty years, @the_ins_ru can reveal, based on emails we obtained between Zdanoka and two of her FSB handlers. theins.press/en/politics/26…
Her two known case officers we have identified as Dmitry Gladey, 74, and Sergei Beltyukov, 53. Both are attached to the FSB's apparatus in St. Petersburg. The FSB is Russia's domestic security service, one of the successors of the KGB.

🧵New interview with "Karl," the Estonian military analyst whose insights on the war in Ukraine have proved remarkably acute. With @holger_r: "Let’s start from the frontlines where changes over the last months have been completely minimal. Russia has slight success south of Kupyansk and allegedly also south of Avdiivka, but it is only on a very operational level."