OSINT: "Brown Moses" & Bellingcat (merged thread)

[davidbfpo]

The opening part of a Bellingcat investigation into the private operator of UK and other nation's visa issuing being subverted by the Russians, hence the two Skirpal suspects having visas for year to enter the UK and other European nations. It starts with:

One of the unanswered questions lingering after Bellingcat’s unmasking of the identities of suspects in the botched-up poisoning of Sergey and Yulia Skripal, is how two (or, likely, more) undercover GRU officers were able to obtain visas to travel to the UK. Securing a visa to the UK – as to most of EU destinations – is not a trivial procedure. A single-entry visitor visa is relatively straightforward to procure – it requires either an invitation from a UK resident or business, or a pre-arranged tourist trip.

Link:https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-a...l-visa-system/

[AdamG]

Social media OSINT*.

A warship of Russia's Northern fleet entered the Black Sea on Wednesday, January 9. The vessel in question is the Severomorsk (619) anti-submarine Udaloy-class destroyer, according to Andriy Klymenko, an expert with the Ukraine-based Maidan of Foreign Affairs Foundation. "For the first time since the start of Crimea occupation, a warship of the Russian Northern fleet – not just a landing ship of another fleet but the one that is part of the Russian navy's main strike force – has entered the Black Sea waters," * the expert wrote on Facebook, also posting the relevant photos of the destroyer.

https://www.unian.info/politics/1040...sea-photo.html

[davidbfpo]

The latest Bellingcat update on the Skirpal attack in the UK; another apart will follow. A glimpse into "escape and evade":

It is unclear what Fedotov’s role may have been, if any, in the preparation and execution of the poisoning operation. We could also not establish if he traveled to Salisbury on any of the days he was in the UK. He had booked a return flight on Aeroflot’s SU 2579 from Heathrow to Moscow in the afternoon of March 4, the day on which Sergey and Yuliya Skripal collapsed unconscious. However, he never boarded that flight. PNR records seen by Bellingcat and its investigative partners show that despite checking in to that flight around noon on March 4, “Fedotov” was a last minute no-show. Instead, using transportation that has yet to be identified by us, he made his way to Rome, and boarded a flight at 15:30 that same day back to Moscow.

Link:https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-a...ge-1/#comments

[davidbfpo]

Next part on the investigation. Note some of the information gained came from archived Russian public records and the use of "helpers" to check existing public records which is not open source information.
Link:https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-a...phing-a-ghost/

[davidbfpo]

Bellingcat continues to provide information, in this example they cannot confirm the identity of the "third man" or the officer in charge of the GRU mission. This final sentence should encourage you to read the article:

The involvement of a GRU Major General would indicate the unusually high importance of the operation.

Link:https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-a...ission-london/