Eliot Higgins’s posts

Oct 1

I've been trying to assess the improved Bing Images, and here's a good example of a major improvement. Earlier this year, I used Dwarf Fortress's randomly generated item descriptions as a Midjourney prompt, producing mixed results. Here's a wooden blow gun by Midjourney:

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"Russia is behind the killing of George Floyd to provoke protests and riots" has to be one of the dumbest takes on the current situation in the US.

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Oct 24, 2022

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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Sep 21, 2022

"Let me win or I'll nuke you" isn't exactly a position of strength.

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Mar 20

Making pictures of Trump getting arrested while waiting for Trump's arrest.

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🧵Meet Maria Adela Kuhfeldt Rivera, widow, jeweller, and socialite. The love child of a German father and a Peruvian mother, born in Callao, Peru, and abandoned in Moscow by her mother during the 1980 Olympic Games.

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Dec 28, 2022

With $TSLA already down 3% in pre-market trading, let's see what the CEO is up to:

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This week, a Russian couple living in Sweden for the past 20 years were arrested, with the husband detained under suspicion of working for the Russian intelligence services.

@christogrozev

did some digging and made some interesting discoveries about their neighbours in Moscow.

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Dec 15, 2022

Bellingcat Discord member Sepulco geolocated the video Elon Musk posted overnight, claiming to show a stalker, which he used to justify the banning of accounts that tracked flights. It's at 34.116175,-118.160635, not close to any airports. google.com/maps/@34.11613

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Jul 30, 2022

To be honest, Twitter, I think we'd all just be cool with you banning the account:

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Oct 20, 2022

Latest update from the lettuce, disco lights have been deployed.

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Dec 12, 2022

The account that posted Elon Musk getting booed at Dave Chapelle's show was just deleted, for some reason. Here's the video in question youtu.be/BdBga225HBk

2:17

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Kevin✙Beeee

@BeeeKevin

Dec 12, 2022

Replying to @SoozUK and @CleoPat48937885

Piggy-backing off of this because it's the topic comment... Uhh, did @CleoPat48937885's account just disappear for everyone else? Like, within the last 5 minutes since I clicked on this?

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Apr 23, 2022

Pro-Russian accounts are currently sharing a video (left) that has a big ol' pile of cocaine digitally added to smear Zelensky. The original video (right), sans cocaine, can be found here youtube.com/shorts/dbTjpPL

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Mar 19, 2022

Nothing says more about the crass brutality of Putin's war in Ukraine than this satellite image of the bombed remains of Mariupol Drama Theatre. Shelter for victims of his war, "CHILDREN" written outside so clearly that it's visible from space, and still it was bombed.

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May 10

The right has spent that last 48 hours attacking

@Bellingcat

for saying the Allen mall shooter had neo-Nazi tattoos. Here's what the Allen police said "We do know that he had Neo-Nazi ideation. He had patches, he had tattoos, even his signature verified that."

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The Kherson front is collapsing faster than Twitter.

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Sep 9, 2022

Pro-Russian mapmakers tracking the fighting around Kharkiv are showing a really significant problem for Russia unfolding rapidly.

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Feb 11

Sam Smith looks like he's about to get shot down by a F-22.

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Always nice to see a new wave of people discovering Roger Waters is a terrible person.

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Replying to

Scourge of the Russian intelligence services, Christo Grozev, has spent the last several months piecing together the team responsible for programming Russian cruise missiles launched at targets in Ukraine, frequently hitting civilian infrastructure.

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Apr 8

Genius invents Twitter verification

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Jun 12

The owner of Twitter called Bellingcat a psy-op because it reported accurate information about a mass shooter.

Quote

Linda Yaccarino

@lindayaX

Jun 12

Replying to @lindayaX

Twitter is on a mission to become the world’s most accurate real-time information source and a global town square for communication. That's not an empty promise. That’s OUR reality.

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The latest update from our future robot overlords youtu.be/fUyU3lKzoio

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Oct 10, 2022

Russia's response to the attack on the Kerch bridge is to target civilians during the rush hour in Kyiv. Terrorising civilians far away from any front line is a desperate act, another sign of their inability to achieve a military victory in the field.

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Journalists - Next time Elon Musk falsely accuses Bellingcat of being a psy op on your TV show maybe push back a little and ask why he thinks that?

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The truly tragic thing about this is Twitter was probably a key element of the development of online open source investigation and Bellingcat over the last decade, having a huge impact on multiple fields of work, and this is what we get.

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Elon "Graphic Design Is My Passion" Musk's logo for "X" is literally just Unicode Character “𝕏” (U+1D54F). compart.com/en/unicode/U+1

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I told you it was Russia.

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Nov 28, 2022

Bellingcat ruining Russia's day again in about 30 minutes.

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Sep 9, 2022

Running out of vehicles, running out of ammo, running out of fuel, running out of soldiers, and even running out of bridges. Vladimir Putin, master strategist.

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Replying to

Getting kicked out a White House press briefing for turning on a camera is a way more interesting story than regurgitating Spicer's bullshit

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Apr 14

Anyone treating the Discord Leaker like a whistleblower is either ignorant of the facts or just thinks anyone leaking documents is a whistleblower, even if it's to their gamer pals for internet cool person points.

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How it started How it’s going

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Oct 5, 2022

If Prigozhin is using Wagner to stage videos to undermine Shoigu then Putin really has lost control of the situation.

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Replying to

The missile programmers are part of the Russian Armed Forces’ vast Main Computation Centre of the General Staff (GVC), and working with

@the_ins_ru

and

@derspiegel

we’ve identified the 33 military engineers involved with cruise missile attacks in Ukraine.

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Jan 17

Someone is off to the gulag:

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Russian Embassy, SWE

@RusEmbSwe

Jan 17

Gasoline prices per liter, 9 January 2023

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Elon Musk getting duped by conspiracy theorists, and he wants to "fix" Twitter.

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Elon Musk

@elonmusk

Oct 14, 2022

Replying to @EvaKBartlett

Is this list real? What’s the URL?

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Feb 24, 2022

At this rate Russian troops could be marching through Kyiv before the EU, UK and US has implemented any sanctions.

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Replying to

I forgot my favourite part of the story, where she appears to have got her "exclusive" jewellery range from Ali Express vendors.

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Jun 28

Please read the tweet David Sacks is replying to so you can understand what an absolute feckless dupe he is.

Quote

David Sacks

@DavidSacks

Jun 28

Replying to @CaptCoronado

Horrible. American troops should not be in Ukraine. Period, end of story.

Readers added context

The only American troops in Ukraine are embassy guard personnel and security forces--American troops are *not* in combat in Ukraine. thehill.com/policy/defense… (The Ukrainian Foreign Legion does have some Americans, but they are not US military nor are they under the command of the Pentagon: npr.org/2023/05/06/117…)

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Russia Today is beyond parody, how dare Ukraine threaten the soldiers invading its territory?!?

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Crime Scene: Bucha | How Russian soldiers ran a ‘cleansing’ operation...

Nov 3, 2022

I hope all the people whole denied Russian crimes in Bucha will watch this new video from PBS and AP and feel an appropriate level of shame, but some how I doubt they're capable of that.

youtube.com

The Associated Press, @frontlinepbs and SITU Research reviewed hundreds of hours of CCTV footage, intercepts of Russian phone calls and built a 3D model to s...

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Nov 18, 2022

Twitter dying would be a really big blow to the open source investigation community. It really enabled a lot of sharing of information and collaboration that led to real impact. Bellingcat wouldn't have been able to build an audience without it.

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Nov 28, 2022

🧵 In June, The Netherlands announced it had detained a Russian spy, posing as a Brazilian just as he was about to start work for the ICC. Sent back to Brazil, he ended up sentenced to 15 years for using fraudulent documents. Russia now claims he's a drug dealer, not a spy...

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Yet again,

gets caught promoting fake videos from Ukraine, this time caught out by a geolocation that places the scene of the video in Russian territory.

@mfa_russia

deleted the tweet without acknowledging it was fake.

Quote

GeoConfirmed

@GeoConfirmed

Mar 27

2:12

GeoConfirmed UKR. "2 Ukrainians stopped a car and fires a gun to scare a women and child."

This is not Ukrainian military

This video is made 30 km's behind the frontline. Russian disinformation, but geolocation by @PStyle0ne1 is on point and GeoConfirmed.

1/13

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Boston Dynamics introduces its latest future robot overlord

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Mar 30, 2022

If you want to see how Russia uses peace talks and ceasefires just look at Syria. They're only ever used to reorganise and prepare for the next offensive.

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Mar 27, 2022

Tomorrow we have something big for you. Sleep well.

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Apr 24

Someone just realised they're not going to be on TV as much.

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Countdown to Musk claiming Ukraine shot down MH17 and Douma was a false flag.

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The Dutch court at the #MH17 trial is detailing why they believe the conflict in Ukraine was an international conflict because of Russia's involvement, which is a good reminder that Russia's invasion of Ukraine really started 8 years ago, not 8 months.

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Sep 11, 2022

Lots of images of abandoned Russian equipment and ammo in recently recaptured territory. I doubt the retreating Russian forces will be an effective fighting force for quite a while, which could be a major problem for Russia if their defences lack the depth they appear to.

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Replying to

Elon Musk's tweet falsely stating Bellingcat "literally specialises in psychological operations" in response to our work on this topic has now reached 3.2 million views, with no community notes visible correcting his false claim.

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Classic saboteur checklist: Explosives ✔️ Guns ✔️ Mein Kampf ✔️ Nazi Flag ✔️ The Sims Expansions ✔️✔️✔️

The following media includes potentially sensitive content. Change settings

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Francis Scarr

@francis_scarr

Apr 25, 2022

Replying to @francis_scarrAnd in these pictures from the raid we have a "Ukrainian neo-Nazi starter pack" courtesy of the FSB pic.twitter.com/5FSvpze1lGpic.twitter.com/5FSvpze1lGpic.twitter.com/5FSvpze1lGpic.twitter.com/5FSvpze1lG

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Feb 21, 2022

I dunno guys, I still think it's NATO pushing for war here.

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Mar 10, 2022

Every day of this conflict is a reminder that despite Russian disinformation being incredibly pathetic there's always going to be people dumb enough to fall for it or shameless enough to share it.

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Apr 25, 2022

Kinda hoping Elon Musk does destroy Twitter so I can have my life back.

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Replying to

Currently we only have Musk's word he was followed from an airport.

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Twitter support says "f** the jews" doesn't violate their policies, in case you were wondering.

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Brandon Friedman

@BFriedmanDC

Sep 4

Nearly 2 million views. Still up. twitter.com/elonmusk/statu…

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If anyone has the exact coordinates of any mass graves I can check Planet hi-res imagery to see if there's any visible signs of ground disturbance to establish when they were dug.

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Mar 18, 2020

Because I'm a massive verification nerd who hates fun, here's a little thread on geolocating these photos that people are claiming aren't from Venice. twitter.com/ikaveri/status

This post is unavailable.

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Mar 16, 2022

It's Syria all over again, Russia bombing hospitals, killing civilians, let's make sure they don't get away with it this time.

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Christo Grozev

@christogrozev

Mar 16, 2022

The last hospital in Mariupol, by @AP. All others were bombed out by Russia. People doctors can't save are lined up in the basement, including infants. It's the most heart wrenching footage of this war. pic.twitter.com/By1J2hW1wD

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Replying to

And to be clear, I don't think Musk knows he's lying, or that he's a Russian op, I just think he's an idiot who consumes garbage media and incorrectly assumes that makes him smart and well-informed, just like thousands of other idiots on this website.

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You have to admire Glenn Greenwald's dedication to completely incinerating his reputation.

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Replying to

The direct commander of the missile pre-planners sub-unit appears to be Col. Igor Bagnyuk. This was established on the basis of the analysis of telephone data of eleven members of the group of engineers obtained from data sources on the Russian black data market.

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Your donation to Bellingcat is a direct contribution to our research. With your support, we will continue to publish groundbreaking investigations and uncover wrongdoing all around the world....

I know you all want Bellingcat to sue Musk, but I'd rather spend our money on publishing the sort of investigations that make people like him say dumb shit about Bellingcat, so please donate here if you want to see more of that

bellingcat.com

Donate - bellingcat

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Replying to

In fact, he barely connects the two events, because tracking a car is very different from tracking a plane.

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First unrectified images of Saki Air Base in Crimea via

@planet

following yesterday's multiple explosions. There's clearly been a massive fire across the base following whatever happened there:

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Replying to

Some of the members of this unit also took part in planning cruise missile attacks on targets in Syria and/or worked at Russia's military command centre in Damascus. Some are also recipients of various military awards, including from Russian President, Vladimir Putin.

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May 14, 2022

Guessing Russia won't be at the next #EUROVISION either.

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Jun 23

Prigozhin better not get himself killed, he owes me 70 grand.

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One hedgehog is more effective than the entire Russian army.

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Visegrád 24

@visegrad24

Sep 12, 2022

The Ukrainian counteroffensive has been slowed down by a stubborn hedgehog.

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Jul 1

You know which tweets also don't load when you reach your limit? Adverts.

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It's 5 years since the Skripal poisonings in Salisbury, and, for Bellingcat, the first in a series of investigations that would eventually lead to uncovering more than a dozen assassination attempts by the Russian state. We started here:

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Over the past week,

has been flipping out about Kent McLellan, aka Boneface, a US neo-Nazi who claims to have fought in Ukraine. Now Bellingcat shows how court filings prove Boneface was making up those claims promoted by Loomer

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People who say Bellingcat is run by Western intelligence services obviously don't appreciate how much admin work I have to do each day.

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Replying to

I genuinely believe this is a dumb FSB officer being told to get 3 SIMs.

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I'd love to hear

and

list some of the psy-ops Bellingcat has been involved with. Is it just the ones that make white supremacists look bad?

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Musk calling

a psy-op now. Seems like his definition of a psy-op is someone who says something he doesn't like.

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Replying to

This is all a result of pathetic Western responses to the invasion of Crimea, Russia's occupation of Eastern Ukraine, the use of nerve agents on British soil, mass assassination programmes targeting individuals at home and abroad, and rampant kleptocracy and corruption.

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Sep 13, 2022

It's amuses me to no end that we've now reached the point in tankiedom that Western tankies are in deeper denial about the Kharkiv offensive and the situation for Russian in Ukraine than literal Russian TV propagandists.

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Bellingcat's

uncovered the social media profile of the Texas mall shooter yesterday, revealing some pretty obvious clues that the shooter was far-right, leading to the worst people on this website losing their minds. Here's what Aric found.

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Replying to

Comparison of August 9th and August 10th imagery show very large craters, many destroyed aircraft, and destroyed buildings. It looks like a direct hit on the building on the left, so whatever it was seems accurate.

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okay with state run Twitter accounts using anti-Semitic tropes? Maybe he can have a poll for this one too? See if his followers are cool with casual anti-Semitism. twitter.com/RussianEmbassy

This post is unavailable.

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Jun 24

If you thought Putin was isolated and paranoid before this, just imagine what he'll be like afterwards.

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Replying to

One of the team members, Maj. Andrey Ivanyutin, can be seen in the background of this photograph of a meeting between President Putin and Syrian President Assad held in a secure Russian compound in Damascus in January 2021

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Now all these US right wingers and Elon Musk stans have discovered Bellingcat I get to see them citing the dumbest tankies and conspiracy theorists in an attempt to attack our credibility. Not as smart as you think it is, guys.

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Replying to

By examining telephone metadata from the members of the unit it has been possible to link phone activity to attacks on Ukraine, including the October 10th strikes on Kyiv.

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Dec 9, 2022

Personally if I had access to Twitter moderation systems I'd focus on how requests from authoritarian governments are handled, but I suspect Elon doesn't want people focused on that.

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Replying to

The unit within the GVC that we identified appears to consist of three teams of approximately 10 engineers each, with each team dedicated to programming flight-paths of one specific high-precision missile type, launched from the sea, land, and air.

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Replying to

This building is packed full of interesting residents. The apartment number of the couple arrested in Sweden is 282, and just down the corridor is apartment 288, the home of Denis Sergeev, the 3rd suspect in the Skripal poisoning:

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Apr 20, 2022

In case anyone is worried about evidence being destroyed, I've had Graham Phillips entire YouTube channel forensically archived, just in case it gets deleted by YouTube.

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Apr 11, 2019

I finally understand why Michael Avenatti thought he could run for President.

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Michael Finnegan

@finneganscribe

Apr 11, 2019

BREAKING: Avenatti indicted on 36 counts of tax dodging, perjury, fraud & embezzlement of millions of $ from 5 clients in sweeping expansion of the criminal case against the LA lawyer. Faces up to 335 years in prison if convicted. Full details here. latimes.com/politics/la-na

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Mar 7, 2022

I'm starting to think Lavrov doesn't have a clue what's going on and is just winging it until Putin gets couped.

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Russian Embassy, UK

@RussianEmbassy

Mar 7, 2022

FM #Lavrov: The goal of Russia’s special military operation is to stop any war that could take place on Ukrainian territory or that could start from there.

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Feb 28

Chomsky basically saying here it's up to Russia what Ukraine's foreign policy is, or else. Anti-imperialism clearly only counts when it's about the US.

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KanekoaTheGreat

@KanekoaTheGreat

Feb 27

Noam Chomsky explains how US involvement in Ukraine and the expansion of NATO to Russia's border created the War in Ukraine: "The idea that Ukraine would join a western military alliance would be quite unacceptable to any Russian leader. Gorbachev agreed to allow Germany to join…

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So it sounds like Russia gave up all their high profile POWs for Viktor Medvedchuk? Vladimir Putin, master strategist, strikes again.

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Aug 12

Looks like he's right on schedule.

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Jul 11

Elon Musk is so committed to his Lowtax speedrun he's even doing the Lowtax vs Uwe Boll bit. At this rate his spine should be disintegrating by Christmas. twitter.com/stylebender/st…

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BREAKING - In a bizarre twist in the Navalny FSB assassination case, Navalny managed to trick one of the FSB officers involved into providing details of the assassination attempt by phone, all caught on camera.

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