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Czech, Russian envoys fly home amid depot explosion dispute

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By KAREL JANICEK

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You are posting that the BBC is no longer a reputable source of journalism.

For the US overall, that is correct.

I think you are wrong. The BBC World News is watched and listened to, in more than 200 countries by 450 million people. More than any American news channel.

Again, I was talking about the US and again, FNC is the most-watched news channel and has been so for 20 years pretty much straight, even after the former Presidential election and many stopped watching they still beat the competition.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

Plus, their covert unit is a very small group - only a handful of active agents, with the rest of the staff are just supports, so it's not like they can reuse so many active agents before repeating

Is this supported by any facts or just speculating, like the news sources on this article? Just curious.

GRU Unit 29155 - after the Salisbury UK incident opened the world to this covert unit, a lot more info about them has been exposed, particularly due to their sloppy exits (their getaways being able to be tracked after doing their deeds)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_29155

While Unit 29155 is often described as secretive, its tradecraft has at times been sloppy, including implausible cover stories and repeated use of the same aliases. Using leaked passport records, flight passenger data, and databases of border crossings, journalists and open-source investigators from groups such as Bellingcat and the Russian outlet the Insider have been able to use this trail of breadcrumbs to build a remarkably detailed picture of the unit and its members.

"‘Special assassination squad’: Secret Russian military unit with ‘terrifying’ mission exposed. A series of seemingly unrelated incidents across Europe have been linked to an elite secret group of killers, dubbed Unit 29155 — and their mission is chilling."

https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/special-assassination-squad-secret-russian-military-unit-with-terrifying-mission-exposed/news-story/1a1b73766ec8abf7d5da8dee128936fc

Unit 29155: In many ways, this represents the “missing link” in the GRU intelligence agency’s “hybrid warfare” campaign. Where the other units engage in information warfare and “plausible deniability” operations, 29155 fulfills the role of intimidation and retribution.

The clandestine sub-unit of GRU’s military unit 29155 is a top-secret intelligence squad comprising of approximately 20 undercover officers with hands-on combat experience and hailing from a broad array of backgrounds, ranging from signals intelligence to medicine.

A NEW WAY OF WAR

To understand the existence of units like 29155, Dr Sussex said one must understand how Moscow thinks.

“In the West, we view wars differently to the way Russia does,” he said. “When we talk about war, we talk about conflict that is very rules-bound. Something usually sanctioned by the United Nations. Something that’s got tight reasons for engaging in. Something that has a clear exit strategy. The Russian view is very different.”

That view was detailed in 2012 when General Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s chief of the General Staff, published an article in a military policy journal. His doctrine embraced a new, whole-of-society concept that drew little distinction between war and peace.

War and peace is no longer black and white. Instead, it’s a whole new “grey zone”.

“Their doctrine is that war is total,” Dr Sussex says. “Why fight with your hands tied behind your back? In other words, war should use subterfuge. It should use misinformation. It should be political. It should be economic. Basically, it must embrace all levels of society — and exploit the West’s vulnerabilities.”

One of those vulnerabilities, Moscow believes, is democracy itself. Which is where misinformation and intimidation comes into play.

Otherwise, Moscow has long since realised the old formulas of propaganda don’t work.

So, it co-opts social media to do its work for it.

“People who disseminate misinformation that supports Moscow’s line are often just ordinary citizens,” Dr Sussex said. “Citizens become curators of misinformation because they’re the ones that do the spreading. The state can’t do it by itself because it then becomes obvious.”

Instead, Moscow targets interest groups, extremists and activists.

“If you want to put out misinformation to the public that there’s a deep-state conspiracy, you need anti-vaxxers, you need lizard-people conspiracy theorists,” he said. “But not just that, you need people who have large numbers of followers — and ultimately people inside politics who are prepared to retweet and boost these messages.”

In essence, these information operations tap into problems that already exists within Western society.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

The Czech intelligence services have repeatedly warned against allowing Russian and Chinese companies to bid in the multibillion-dollar tender, saying they pose security risk due to links to their respective governments.

Well, well...now we know the Chinese had a little bit of involvement here and why am I not surprised? I sure hope Biden is up to this because I can see turning into something very nasty in the long run.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

*BBC World News is the world's most-watched channel.*

*Not in the *US.

The US is not the world.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

No, you can’t. The Russians seem to be just that arrogant/stupid.

Yep, this looks exactly as what one would see these days in those "objective, high-standard, award-winning" news media.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

No, you can’t. The Russians seem to be just that arrogant/stupid.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Yeah, seems they were that stupid - they didn't think investigators would comb through copies of passports (with one set of passports they themselves emailed from the "National Guard of Tajikistan," lol)

Yeah, you just can't make this stuff up. Lol

-5 ( +0 / -5 )

Plus, their covert unit is a very small group - only a handful of active agents, with the rest of the staff are just supports, so it's not like they can reuse so many active agents before repeating

Is this supported by any facts or just speculating, like the news sources on this article? Just curious.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Same photos, different names and countries on the passports, same poisoning technique

Not only that, these guys are also responsible for burning the library of Alexandria, sinking the Titanic, and releasing the bat at the Wuhan market! Stupidly enough, they left the same photos at each of those crime scenes, that's how we know.

Yeah, seems they were that stupid - they didn't think investigators would comb through copies of passports (with one set of passports they themselves emailed from the "National Guard of Tajikistan," lol)

Plus, their covert unit is a very small group - only a handful of active agents, with the rest of the staff are just supports, so it's not like they can reuse so many active agents before repeating

0 ( +1 / -1 )

As if the same two spy’s would do two high profile attacks.

The Czech attacks were in 2014. The two men were uncovered after the Skripal poisonings in 2018. They were unknown until then.

All of this information is in the article that you didn't read.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

As it is on CNN, the BBC, ABC and reputable sources of journalism, yes. It is very likely true.

25 years ago, one could definitely say that, not anymore though..

So not only could they not properly poison the right person and accidentally killed the wrong person, they couldn’t get the arms to blow up at the right time.

The Russians do love their poisons don't they?

-5 ( +0 / -5 )

Here's more details of the story

For Czech police, that included the October 2014 explosion. A crucial find was an email sent to Imex Group, the company which operated the depot.

The email claimed to come from the National Guard of Tajikistan (it was later traced to an user in Russia). It asked for two men to be given access to the site for an inspection visit. Scans of their passports were attached. The men were said to be Ruslan Tabarov from Tajikistan and Nicolaj Popa, a Moldovan citizen.

The pictures on the passports match those of the two men accused by Britain of the Salisbury poisoning.

The two men travelled to the UK in March 2018 under the names Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov. The pair then appeared on Russian TV denying involvement, claiming they were sports nutritionists who visited Salisbury to see the spire of the cathedral.

On 11 October 2014, the men used the same cover identities they used in Salisbury - Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov - to arrive at Prague airport. They stayed in Prague for two days. They then booked into accommodation in Ostrava, near the ammunition depot on 13 October. They were booked to stay until the 17 October.

The explosion took place on the 16th, and that day the pair headed to Vienna airport to fly to Moscow. The only people to die were two innocent Czech men working at the depot. Czech police issued pictures of the two suspects saying they wanted to speak to them. Russian authorities say their constitution prevents the men being extradited.

Why would Russian intelligence blow up the arms depot? One of the people storing weapons there was a Bulgarian arms dealer called Emilian Gebrev

In April 2015, six months after the Czech explosion, Gebrev fell seriously ill in the Bulgarian capital Sofia. After a month in hospital, he was released but then fell sick again. Despite suspicions, Bulgarian authorities made little progress amid talk it was simply food poisoning. It was only after events in Salisbury in 2018 that people paid more attention.

Surveillance of that car park released by a Bulgarian prosecutor last year shows one man approaching the cars of Gebrev, as well as his son and business partner who would also fall ill. A toxic substance is believed to have been smeared on the handles - similar to the way Novichok was placed on the handle of Sergei Skripal's house.

The pair involved in Salisbury and now linked to the Czech explosion have not been seen since they were identified in 2018.

Same photos, different names and countries on the passports, same poisoning technique

2 ( +2 / -0 )

2 innocent Czech workers were killed in that explosion - that's foreign KGB/GRU agents committing a fatal hit attack in non-hostile sovereign nation

The Czechs are the victims here from an unprovoked attack

Their names and photos matched two Russians whom British authorities charged in absentia in 2018 with trying to kill former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter with the Soviet nerve agent Novichok in the English city of Salisbury.

Lol, they actually used the same photos on their 2 different fake passports (customs take a photo copy of your passports at airports, so they know what you presented to them)

(This should put to bed any notion that they're mere tourists)

1 ( +1 / -0 )

As it is on CNN, the BBC, ABC and reputable sources of journalism, yes. It is very likely true.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

It's pretty cut and dry.

Some pretty deep analysis there. They showed it on tv, so it must be true

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

I know. Pretty stupid, right? They have pictures of the same 2 guys in the same 2 places. It's pretty cut and dry.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

As if the same two spy’s would do two high profile attacks.

-5 ( +1 / -6 )

“The explosion was not supposed to occur on Czech Republic’s territory,” Zeman said.

So not only could they not properly poison the right person and accidentally killed the wrong person, they couldn’t get the arms to blow up at the right time.

Some real James Bonds you got there, Vlad.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

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