Skripal Suspect Boshirov Identified as GRU Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga

Outstanding work.<p>Now it is interesting to go back and look at the PR campaign and all the disinformation pushed to deflect and cover it up.<p>The RT channel&#x27;s interview with the &quot;gay Russian tourists&quot; was precious.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.rt.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;438356-rt-petrov-boshirov-full-interview&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.rt.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;438356-rt-petrov-boshirov-full-inter...</a><p>&gt; You know, let’s not breach anyone’s privacy. We came to you for protection, but this is turning into some kind of an interrogation. You are going too far. We came to you for protection. You’re not interrogating us.<p>And you can almost see through the logic - &quot;Hmm, the West sympathizes with gays so why don&#x27;t we insinuate you are gay and then they&#x27;ll feel sorry for you and forget about you being GRU agents assassinating people&quot;.

This is impressive journalistic work. If you are a fan of such type of open-source intelligence, I highly recommend the Arms Control Wonk podcast and blog, who have done amazing investigations into North Korean missile development (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.armscontrolwonk.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.armscontrolwonk.com&#x2F;</a>).<p>Yet, with so many obvious giveaways, I find it hard to believe Russia ever wanted to get away with the Skripal poisoning. From using a very exotic Russian-made poison to the absurd Salisbury Cathedral story, it looks like a provocation or trolling. Of course, the Russian government will officially deny any involvement, but they are doing it with an obvious wink.

The Web of Death[1] by Buzzfeed lists all the people related to Russia who died in unexpected circumstances on the UK&#x27;s soil in the last 15 years, together with their personal stories and connections.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.buzzfeed.com&#x2F;heidiblake&#x2F;from-russia-with-blood-14-suspected-hits-on-british-soil#11278400" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.buzzfeed.com&#x2F;heidiblake&#x2F;from-russia-with-blood-1...</a>

I think a bit skepticism is due here. Their &quot;proof&quot; that Chepiga and Boshirov are the same person rests almost solely on a supposed strong resemblance between a photo of Chepiga taken in 2003 and photos of Boshirov from 2009 and 2018. I have stared at the photos for a long time and I am not sure they are the same person. Chepiga&#x27;s eyebrows and bottoms of ears look different. I am not saying that they are not the same person but neither am I convinced they are.

More unsubstantiated claims from Bellingcat.<p>Remember that video he &quot;found on youtube&quot; that showed a Russian BUK driving through the streets on East Ukraine ? Well, it turns out it was composited from a video of the street, overlaid with an image of the BUK carrier. [1] Higgins is a fraud and a liar.<p>It&#x27;s amazing that HN (which I&#x27;d always considered a forum for serious, thoughtful and intelligent people) would give credence to anything this guy says.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sputniknews.com&#x2F;russia&#x2F;201809171068089638-russia-boeing-mh-17&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sputniknews.com&#x2F;russia&#x2F;201809171068089638-russia-boe...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;aponline&#x2F;2018&#x2F;09&#x2F;17&#x2F;world&#x2F;europe&#x2F;ap-eu-russia-mh17.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;aponline&#x2F;2018&#x2F;09&#x2F;17&#x2F;world&#x2F;europe&#x2F;ap-...</a><p>[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mirror.co.uk&#x2F;news&#x2F;world-news&#x2F;malaysia-airlines-flight-mh17-russia-13258734" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mirror.co.uk&#x2F;news&#x2F;world-news&#x2F;malaysia-airlines-f...</a>

Key quote:<p><i>&gt;In our source’s words, an operation of this sort would have typically required a lower-ranked, “field operative” with a military rank of “no higher than captain.” The source further surmised that to send a highly decorated colonel back to a field job would be highly extraordinary, and would imply that “the job was ordered at the highest level.”</i><p>That speaks for itself

Amazing work, but I&#x27;m genuinely surprised that you can uncover top spy identities, just using publicly, and leaked, material available over the internet.

There&#x27;s an article [in russian] on how easy you can get a government, mobile phone, bank database reports on anybody, you can get list of all bank accounts, history of border crossings, history of mobile phone locations, personal phone numbers, equity ownership, debts and credits online, for tens of $: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;habr.com&#x2F;post&#x2F;423947&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;habr.com&#x2F;post&#x2F;423947&#x2F;</a><p>The passport data in the investigation is nothing too special. When total control goes side-by-side with corruption, thats the result.

Just yesterday there was BBC investigation of killings in Cameroon based only on what is available on the Internet and now this. Amazing!

I have never heard of bellingcat.com<p>The work seems impressive but I think it should be taken with caution. Who is behind this website that he can access Russian databases via &quot;contacts&quot;? Passport databases contain pictures? (I have no idea)<p>&quot;Bellingcat has contacted confidentially a former Russian military officer of similar rank as Colonel Chepig&quot;<p>How do you find such people? Soldiers should be a dime a dozen, GRU colonels should be hard to find.<p>&quot;Bellingcat and the Insider have obtained “Petrov”‘s and “Boshirov”s border crossing data for a number of countries in Europe and Asia, for the period of validity of their international passports (mid-2016 through today). &quot; Wow.<p>Man, if the &quot;social network research skills&quot; of Eliott Higgins are for real, I have a few other cases he could dig in.<p>EDIT: I think I was right being skeptical. As mentioned here, while looking similar, the persons shown in the pics seem not to be identical to me. Can someone confirm this with software? I would be especially interested in the normalized distance between the eyes.<p>Besides this, he has put a picture online that he obtained illegally and he is violating EU privacy law.

That&#x27;s especially funny that real passport data of high ranked security officer is available in leaked data and you can bribe you way into FSB&#x27;s database of identity forms to get up to date info as well.<p>It&#x27;s not same kind of investigation based on open info that bellingcat have done before.

This is interesting as an investigative work, but what of it?<p>Are we to believe only Russia conducts extra-judicial assassinations of people of interest? And do we expect the governments responsible to come out and admit it?<p>To me this circus around this particular assassination just appears to stem from having to justify sanctions against Russia by the UK. But then again, I don&#x27;t expect a country to come out and admit that they&#x27;ll sanction a country just to weaken it&#x27;s economy and provoke social instability until they get a more favorable government.

So was bellingcat fed this information from a western Intelligence organization and then they parallel constructed it? Seems likely.

We need to admit the Cold War is back. Is anyone else as terrified as I am of the assault on reason from all sides right now?

In these games of high level &#x27;politics&#x27; I always assume nobody in the public really knows anything.<p>Any claims produced by anyone involved are just claims and not facts that can be verified by me or any of those so called journalists.<p>I personally would trust neither Putin nor Trump with my lunchbox.