@christogrozev
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Investigative journalist (Spiegel, The Insider, ex-Bellingcat), film maker and hobby coder. https://t.co/3kUwYLHXoL
Joined May 2010
For anyone fascinated by yesterday's @nytimes.expose on the use of Brazilian identities by Russia's illegals spies, you may want to see my explainer on the topic from a few months ago:.
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Jesus, Ukraine just killed Gen. Maj. Vitaly Gerassimov, chief of staff of the 41 Army. At Kharkiv. Russia, if you're listening: delete your army.
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!!! Ukraine's Interior ministry asked residents to take down street signs in order to confuse oncoming Russian troops. The state road-signs agency went one step further. (Roughly: all directions are to "go fuck yourselves")
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! Russia's main propaganda "news program" tonight.
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War of words, songs and bombs: Russian offices struggle to communicate attack plans on short-wave radio, while Ukraine jams them with. their national anthem. Shivers.
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Please vote on what to do with @elonmusk's wealth. - give it away. - wash it down the toilet. - burn it. - Twitter remains without edit button.
Ukraine-Russia Peace:. - Redo elections of annexed regions under UN supervision. Russia leaves if that is will of the people. - Crimea formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchev’s mistake). - Water supply to Crimea assured. - Ukraine remains neutral.
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Two persons close to the Russia-Ukraine negotiations (including back channel talks) tell me Russia proposed (1) Zelensky remains pro forma president but Russia appoints Boiko as PM, (2) Ukraine recognizes L/DNR and Crimea, (3) No NATO. Ze told them emphatically no.
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Zelensky's official telegram account announces that SBU caught the fugitive oligarch and Putin's close friend Viktor Medvedchuk. Camouflage and all.
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Three independent sources report that the deputy chief of Russia's Rosgvardia (a unit of RU's interior army which has had tremendous losses in Ukraine), Gen. Roman Gavrilov has been detained by FSB. Gavrilov had also previously worked in FSO, Putin's security service.
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NBC reports that, shockingly, during his latest Moscow pilgrimage Witkoff met with Putin and his two negotiators alone and without his own interpreter, relying - in breach of protocol - on a locally present one. However, this seems half the problem (1/n).
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Russian mercenaries posted this comparison of a Russian soldier's first-aid kit (above) and a Ukrainian one (below). "This is what Putin and Shoigu brought us to. ", one of the commenters complain.
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The idiots tried to use the Era cryptophones in Kharkiv, after destroying many 3g cell towers and also replacing others with stingrays. Era needs 3g/4g to communicate. The Russian army is equipped with secure phones that can't work in areas where the Russian army operates.
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Booked an apartment for Ukrainian refugees at Bulgaria's seaside. The apartment owners were Russian so I had some concerns. Then I got a call from an unknown number. Slightly accented Bulgarian: "Are you Christo from @bellingcat? We would like to donate the apartment for a month".
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This is what they are doing now to Kharkiv - a city that they totally believed was part of the "Russian world". What will they do to the OTHERS??
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Separately from all the evidence Russia is lying about not having killed civilians with a Tochka-U today, the VERY idea that Ukraine would *need* to kill 50+ innocent Ukrainians just to frame Russia, when there's tons of already verified evidence RU killed thousands, is absurd.
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Kyrgyzstan cancels at last minute joint military exercises with Russia, Belarus, Armenia and other former Soviet countries that were supposed to bring nearly 7,000 troops and showcase unity with Russia. Unironically, the exercises were named "Unbreakable Brotherhood 2022".
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"That's what you get for always staring at your phone"
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Kremlin: "We bombed the maternity hospital because it was a recruiting center for Azov. But we didn't bomb it, Ukrainians did. Also there were no pregnant women there, just actors. But here's the pregnant woman. She also played the other pregnant woman. The one who actually died".
Very concerning news. Marianna, the pregnant girl from #Mariupol, turns out to be one of the refugees that has been taken to #Russia in violation of the evacuation agreement. There they put her in front of a camera and have her say there was no aerial attack on the hospital.
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Russian "court" approved today Russia's censor RosComNadzor's fine imposed on @bellingcat for not branding itself "foreign agent". The fine is half a million rubles. We will wait one week and then gladly pay the 10 cents.
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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".
Ever wonder how Russian cruise missiles find their way into Ukrainian playgrounds, power stations, and apartment buildings? Well thanks to @bellingcat’s @christogrozev wonder no more. It’s time to meet the team behind the targeting of Russian missiles on civilian infrastructure.
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Oksana, an amazingly brave Russian journalist, was the Ukraine reporter for our investigative partner @the_ins_ru. She was killed by her own country's army shelling civilian areas in the Podol district in Kyiv. She was killed while reporting on the damage caused by the shelling.
Russian journalist Oksana Baulina died today in Kyiv while reporting on the Russian shelling of the Podil. One more civilian died at the same time, and two people who assisted here were injured.
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Russia fired 100 missiles at Ukraine today, hitting a residential building in Kyiv and leaving whole cities without electricity. These young men and women were inputting the missile flight paths, again.
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Exactly at this time 8 years ago, Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 took off from Amsterdam with 298 people on board. Less than 3 hours later, they were all killed by a BUK anti-aircraft weapon, fired by the same incompetent Russian army that is killing mothers and children today.
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Incredible: Belarus state TV presents explosion at Freedom Square in Kharkiv as "a provocation by the Ukrainian nazis", and says "more and more Ukrainian soldiers are refusing to fight". This is straight out of nazi propaganda handbooks during WW2.
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Wow. Russian @mod_russia admits 498 casualties, over 1500 wounded. You know what this means in Kremlinspeak.
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We enhanced the CCTV images from the moment the missile hit the cultural/administrative building in Kharkiv. It matches the countours and dimensions of 3M54-1 Kalibr. Obviously, Ukraine has no such missiles.
Incredible: Belarus state TV presents explosion at Freedom Square in Kharkiv as "a provocation by the Ukrainian nazis", and says "more and more Ukrainian soldiers are refusing to fight". This is straight out of nazi propaganda handbooks during WW2.
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The headquarters of Russia's Black Sea Navy in Sevastopol has been hit, the Sevastopol governor says. At least 5 reported "injured". This on Russia's much revered Navy Day.
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All plane tickets from Russia to visa-free countries are sold out, @ru_rbc reports. I wonder what the ratio of male to female passengers is.
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So it's "not occupation, it's liberation". Why the fuck do you put up the Russian flag then?
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Last night, an alleged FSB whistle-blower letter was published that damned Russia's military performance in Ukraine and predicted a disaster for the RU in the next weeks and months. I wasn't sure if it was authentic - as Ukraine had previously leaked fake FSB letters as psy-ops.
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My Wagner source: "Hi, by the end of the week Ukraine will no longer exist"
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The two most powerful AM transmitters in Europe were in Transnistria, and Russia was using them to cover Ukraine with Russian propaganda. Ujtol today. Apparently this morning someone bombed out these two transmitter sites, with no casualties. Say @tass_agency .
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Coca Cola exits Russia, after McDonald's. If Pepsi chooses to remain, we're literally back to 1984.
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The Russian fast-food chain that Russian parliament's speaker has proposed replace @McDonalds has filed for this trademark. Not kidding.
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Kyiv now. Continuous rocket shelling. And three convoys of tanks - almost 500 in total - approaching the city from different directions. It will be hellish tonight.
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This is not the worst part. In the phone call in which the FSB officer assigned to the 41st Army reports the death to his boss in Tula, he says they've lost all secure communications. Thus the phone call using a local sim card. Thus the intercept.
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Powerful. A Ukrainian approaches unknown soldiers and yells at them to say "palyanitsa". Realizing they're Russian, he tells them they can't tell him not to videotape, as Ukrainians constitution allows him to.
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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.
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Newly mobilized Russian men are showing the rusted AK's they were given.
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! Ukrainian armed forces announced that they have killed maj. gen. Andrey Sukhovetskiy, a Spetsnaz commander and deputy chief of the 41 Army in Novosibirsk. This appears confirmed by a spokesperson of the Russian Paratroopers Union. If confirmed, major demotivator for RU.
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I've been receiving messages from Chechen sources that after huge losses of Kadyrov's personal "army" (in particular: @ 70 of them were reported charred alive after a single Bayraktar strike), most of the rest returned across the border. Scenes like this corroborate such reports.
Hey @mfa_russia and @RusBotWien, I know you have colleagues, who speak Ukrainian. Here is a message to you from a Ukrainian, who isn’t young anymore, but sounds resilient enough!.And… ah, yeah: #PutinIsaWarCriminal #RussiaGoHome
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In closing, here's the origin of the greatest military opsec failure of all time. First, Putin signed the so-called @bellingcat law, prohibiting soldiers from posting on social media. Then he told the military to not use foreign phones as they are "insecure". The rest is history.
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Yesterday, multiple Russian state media published an extremely shocking, even for Kremlin standards, essay: it presumed "Putin solved the Ukrainian question for ever" - i.e. it presumed Russia took over Ukraine and essentially annexed it into a forever-new--old-union. But. .
"Владимир Путин взял на себя — без капли преувеличения — историческую ответственность, решив не оставлять решение украинского вопроса будущим поколениям". РЕШЕНИЕ УКРАИНСКОГО ВОПРОСА. Колонка на РИА. Я не шучу:
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BREAKING. Czechia expels 18 (!) diplomats after discovering that GRU's unit 29155 - same guys we proved were behind the Skripal and Gebrev poisonings - were behind the explosions at Czech ammunition factories in 2014.
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Russian soldier runs over his commanding officer with a tank as revenge for the botched up operation that led to the death of his comrades.
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Today FSB announced that they have “foiled a plot by Ukraine’s intelligence services” to lure Russian military pilots to surrender to Ukraine – with their planes – in return for millions of USD in payments (thread).
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And this is already confirmed also by Russian militant channels ("Whatever promises there were to send us reinforcements never materialized". So Lyman is in Ukrainian hands.
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Putin's plane left for St Petersburg, and Peskov promptly denied Putin leaving Moscow, which in good old Russian tradition assured the population Putin has left Moscow.
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Ex-convict and human turd-beetle Prigozhin, who sued @Bellingcat in normal court (and lost) and in kangaroo Russian court (and won) over us reporting he runs and funds the Wagner PMC, here on video recruiting Russian convicts for his "own private PMC" Wagner.
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Incredible. Russia's flagship missile cruiser, the famous "Moskva", has been destroyed by Ukraine, Russia admits (saying it was "seriously damaged by fire")
На ракетном крейсере "Москва" в результате пожара сдетонировал боезапас .
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In the call, you hear the Ukraine-based FSB officer ask his boss if he can talk via the secure Era system. The boss says Era is not working. Era is a super expensive cryptophone system that @mod_russia introduced in 2021 with great fanfare. It guaranteed work "in all conditions"
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Wagner's telegram channel had to disable its users' comments, because "through some miraculous way our adversary has replaced our like emoji" (to the Azov logo)
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In having to verify hundreds of videos, am seeing so many dead bodies of Russian soldiers that the statement by Russian's General Staff of "no casualties" begins to sound like a major ticking time-bomb.
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Less than a minute into his speech, Putin turns to conspiracy theories about NATO plotting to attack Russia through Ukraine nazis.
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An important side effect of Russia's invasion is Russia's huge loss of domestic repressive troops. In this incident, what appears to be a big chunk of riot police from Vladimir has been destroyed. Who will beat up protesters during the next rally there?
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The father of one of the young conscripts who went missing on the Moskva missile cruiser lashes out at the Russian military who are even refusing to tell him what happened to his son.
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The FSB is recruiting a new form of online trolls: young people whose job is to scour comments under social media posts or news items for statements that might be considered "extremist" or "seditious". Starting salary is $500. Creating the world's biggest network of snitches.
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Kupyansk has been surrendered by Russian forces, Russian war channels report.
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Major shake-up in Bulgaria, as the leading coalition partner - previously seen as dependent on the "pacifist" president Radev - took a clear pro-Ukraine stance today and attacked the president in "presuming that Russia will win this war, while we think Ukraine will win".
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Putin says "We haven't even begun seriously [fighting] in Ukraine". With up to 10 generals down and 30k+ soldiers killed, not sure this will go well at kitchen-table (or mess) conversations in Russia.
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Jesus, the mobilization goes worse than the cliche about the terrible mobilization.
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Incredible. Germany, Italy, Hungary and Cyprus are blocking a decision to disconnect Russia from the SWIFT network. I expected Italy, Hungary and Cyprus. But GERMANY? Shameful.
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Considering the watermelon 🍉 is a symbol of Kherson, whoever did this deserves a Nobel prize for something.
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In one of the craziest batshit speeches Putin has ever made, he now claims the "collective west is afraid of our philosophy and that's why they try to assassinate our philosophers".
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His boss, who makes a looong pause when he hears the news of Gerassimov's death (before swearing), is Dmitry Shevchenko, a senior FSB officer from Tula. We identified him by searching for his phone (published by Ukrainian military Intel) in open source lookup apps.
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Bulgaria expels 70 (!!!) Russian "diplomats" on espionage charges. This is half the Russian diplomatic presence in Bulgaria.
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!! One of the most gruesome investigations we have worked on: @bellingcat identified the exact location and the group that mutilated and executed a Ukrainian PoW:
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Russians artillery has repeatedly used "two in a row" shelling sessions, hitting the damaged area again once emergency services - or even journalists - arrive to the location. Such incidents, if proven to be a premeditated trend, constitute war crimes.
Oksana, an amazingly brave Russian journalist, was the Ukraine reporter for our investigative partner @the_ins_ru. She was killed by her own country's army shelling civilian areas in the Podol district in Kyiv. She was killed while reporting on the damage caused by the shelling.
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Ukraine plans to submit evidence of Russian artillery hits on a kindergarten and an orphanage to the ICC as an war crimes.
Сьогоднішні атаки РФ на дитячий садок і дитячий будинок є воєнними злочинами та порушенням Римського статуту. Разом з Офісом Генерального прокурора збираємо ці та інші матеріали, які невідкладно передамо до Гааги. Відповідальність неминуча.
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For those who missed it: Gen. Surovikin is preparing Russian public opinion for the surrender of Kherson. Excuses, inter alia: "Kyiv may use banned weapons, we can't afford to expose the population to that. hard decisions must be made. ".
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If confirmed, this will be really major news. Beseda and Bolukh are as high as it gets. Beseda was literally in charge of Ukraine intel (= guy who would have misled Putin on Ukraine's readiness to "welcome liberators"). Bolukh additionally in charge of disinformation.
Putin appears to be truly unhappy with the FSB in Ukraine: he attacked the 5 Service SOiMS (FSB's foreign Intelligence branch). Sergei Beseda, head of the Service, and his deputy Bolukh, head of the DOI, placed under house arrest, according to my sources inside.
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Russian war correspondents report Russian forces are now leaving Balakleya. This is particularly important as the Russian army kept a very sizeable arsenal in this town. Interesting whose hands it will be in tomorrow.
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While it's hard to guess what exactly the purge/reshuffling at the top of the siloviks will result in, one thing is clear: it's doubtless that Putin recognizes the deep s**t this operation is in. I.e. it's so bad that he changes horses in midstream - a big no-no during war.
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An overwhelming percentage of Ukrainians believe Russia will be defeated, and do not support a ceasefire unless Russia fully retreats from Ukraine.
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This purely fascist tweet was retweeted by three people. One was Russia's Head of the Delegation on arms control.
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One unexpected "fog of war" side effect is that Russian army forgot they were pretending they didn't invade Ukraine in 2014. In this fresh obit, the RU officer is described as having been in Ukraine "first in 2014 on assignment".
1й раз в Украину Валерий Березовский 1988 г.р. съездил в 2014 году, где принимал участие в боевых действиях по контракту (что, ихтамнетов уже признали официально?). И о 2й командировке он знал уже 21/02/22, когда кремлёвские ещё всё отрицали #груз200 #всрф
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Russian war channels acknowledge niw that Ukraine has now surrounded Liman, a town of strategic military importance in Donbass. The loss of Liman just a day after Putin signed the annexation of "DNR", which has claimed the city since May this year, will be a major embarrassment.
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Tonight will be the make-it-or-break it night for Kyiv. Having failed with plan A (Spetznaz takeover of key institutions), Russia will likely throw at the capital everything and the sink: subversion teams, artillery shelling (ongoing) and probably for the first time tanks.
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As noticed by many Ukrainians, Kadyrov made the #Moscow4 blunder to publish a video showing SOBR Spetsnaz delivering what he said was Russian humanitarian aid to Mariupol residents. The video in fact showed Kadyrovites give people obviously looted Ukrainian products.
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Lukashenko says "Putin is more alive than anyone else", "will survive us all", "in top shape", "never been more in his right mind", "will only catch a cold at our funerals".
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Half of Belgorod is left without electricity after what appears to be a Ukrainian attack on its central electricity distribution station
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Got this joke in my dream, probably a terrible one but, hey, it's Friday (and I'm a dad):.- What's common between a driverless Tesla and @elonmusk ?.- Neither knows how to stay in its lane.
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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:.
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.
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Russian pro-war channels report of "major explosion felt throughout Sevastopol", "windows blown out, walls shaking".
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This is one of the most obnoxious, hateful face of Russian propaganda. He pontificate against the "western way of life" while encouraging the war on Ukraine and free media. Italian financial police just confiscated his two homes at Lake Como.
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Taking the (information) war to a whole new level, Zelensky just announced Ukraine winning the #Eurovision will be symbolic for Ukraine winning the war. #Eurovision2022 starting. right now.
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