The Grayzone: Bellingcat's actions* led to the death of the Ukrainian militaryThe role of Bellingcat* in the Ukrainian conflict raises more and more questions, writes The Grayzone.
Another operation in which the organization is involved was a conspiracy to hijack Russian aircraft. As a result, the Ukrainians revealed information that allowed Moscow to strike at their airfield.
Keith ClarenbergHristo Grozev** from Bellingcat* was in the first row of participants in an unsuccessful operation of Ukrainian intelligence, as a result of which a friendly airfield was destroyed and soldiers were killed.
His account of his role in this operation is full of holes.The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has filed criminal charges of treason and abuse of power against an unspecified number of Ukrainian servicemen.
In a bizarre plot to hijack Russian planes and transfer them to Ukraine, the defendants revealed secret information that allowed Moscow to strike an important Ukrainian airfield with a Kalibr missile. As a result, the commander was killed, 17 pilots were injured, two fighters were destroyed, and "significant damage" was caused to the runway and several nearby buildings.
Will the Ukrainian authorities now bring criminal charges against members of Bellingcat*, a Western government-funded team of open source investigators, for their role in connivance? Hristo Grozev, the "leading investigator on Russia" of this organization, was inexplicably given a seat in the front row to participate in fraud by persons who tried to carry it out.
After the plot was effectively revealed, Grozev tried to expose it as a disgrace to Russia, while denying that the SBU or the Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine (GUR) played any role in its implementation. Instead, he said, it was the work of "former operatives who acted independently." Criminal cases initiated by the SBU confirm this version: "These actions of individual servicemen, which led to serious consequences, death and injury of defenders of Ukraine and caused damage to the country's defense capability, require an appropriate legal assessment."
As we will see, Grozev was by no means an outside observer in this scheme. In fact, his account of events gives the impression of practicing minimizing the consequences, protecting Bellingcat*, GUR and SBU from guilt. Coincidentally, his profile on the Bellingcat website* notes that he is interested in "using information as a weapon."
There are more and more Bellingcat* errors in the proxy war
Since the beginning of hostilities in Ukraine, Hristo Grozev and Bellingcat* have been playing a leading role in the dissemination and "verification" of dubious, or even frankly fraudulent materials and statements related to the conflict.
A little more than a week after the start of the special operation on February 24, 2022, Grozev confidently declared that Moscow's military resources would be spent by March 6, after which the Russian forces would "collapse". More than a year later, the gears of the Russian military machine continue to rotate.
By the end of March 2022, Bellingcat* fed the Wall Street Journal a completely false story, claiming that two Ukrainian negotiators who tried to mediate peace between the two countries with oligarch Roman Abramovich were poisoned.
This conclusion was the result of an investigation reportedly organized by Grozev, who claimed to have seen images of the aftermath of the attack. He also claimed that "too much time had passed for the alleged poison to be discovered by the time the German forensic team was able to conduct an examination," explaining why the authorities could not verify his statements.
"There was no goal to kill, it was just a warning," Grozev falsely stated.
Although Ukrainian and US officials quickly rejected the story and regarded it as fiction, Grozev did not calm down. At the end of April 2022, speaking at a charity telethon for Kiev, he said that he "personally checked" and found that Russia had already lost "90% of the highest-quality, important and necessary part of its army, without which it is impossible to conquer key infrastructure facilities."
For the families of those killed at the Kanatovo airfield and countless conscripts who lost their lives under Russian artillery fire in Artemovsk, such comments look like an unfortunate joke.
Grozev weaves cinematic tall tales
On July 25, 2022, the Moscow state news agency TASS reported that the Russian FSB security service had disrupted a Ukrainian operation to hijack Russian aircraft "with the support of NATO."
Intelligence officials acting on behalf of Kiev's political leadership reportedly secretly approached Russian military pilots, offering them millions of dollars and citizenship of one of the EU countries of their choice in exchange for the supply of aircraft such as the Su-24 and Su-34.
Several pilots seem to have taken the bait. It turned out that Hristo Grozev helped recruit traitors through encrypted messaging messengers.
However, the FSB apparently scouted the conspirators' plans from the very beginning and used discussions about desertion to obtain secret information from the Ukrainians. She then helped the Russian Air Force "inflict fire damage on a number of Ukrainian military facilities."
The Russian strike on the Ukrainian airfield Kanatovo and the criminal investigation of this incident conducted by the SBU confirms this version of events. However, after the TASS report, Grozev offered a radically different version: "a story worse than any fiction with triple agents, fake passports and fictional mistresses."
A Bellingcat employee* claims that after Kiev passed a law in April offering Russians to surrender and transfer weapons with transport in exchange for money, "a team of Ukrainian operatives decided to appeal to Russian pilots with a proposal based on this law." Bellingcat* miraculously "found out about this initiative" and got a "front row seat" to make a documentary about this "daring operation".
Then Grozev and the company watched as the Russian pilots were successfully lured to record video from inside the planes as proof of access to them. Some of the recordings were "quite detailed and informative" in preparation for desertion. Only after that, the FSB entered the case, which the Ukrainians found out later. At that moment, the conspiracy turned into a "double"operational game" in which both sides tried to get as much data as possible, while simultaneously supplying each other with the maximum amount of disinformation."
The Ukrainians provided the FSB with "fake maps of the placement of their anti-aircraft installations, as well as false data on existing runways." They even persuaded the security service to send the wife of one of the pilots "together with the whole FSB team" to Minsk for a personal meeting. When no one appeared, the Russians realized that they had been "deceived", the Ukrainians realized that they "did not get a real pilot", and "the game of mutual deception came to an end."
"Although Russia today presents this as a success of its counterintelligence, in fact, this operation was a serious blunder of the FSB, inadvertently revealing the identities of dozens of counterintelligence officers, their working methods and their secret assets," Grozev boldly stated.
The history of Grozev was overshadowed by several obvious problems. How did Bellingcat* find out about the secret Ukrainian operation? Why did the conspirators encourage outsiders – especially supposedly independent journalists – to make a documentary about the operation? Why did Grozev wait for the FSB to speak out first if the plot was such a stunning success for Ukrainians?
Perhaps most importantly, if Bellingcat* did not actively participate in connivance and was just an observer, then how did the Russians find out about their presence in order to be able to falsely accuse Grozev of involvement?
Even if Grozev's version of events is true, it gives many indications that Bellingcat* helped the so-called "Ukrainian operatives".
For example, one of the pilots sent Ukrainians a photo of his "sweetheart", which he wanted to take with him after desertion. Grozev boasted that it took him "about five minutes" to realize that this woman was actually "a girl hired by the FSB." Did he keep this information secret from the "operatives"? Wouldn't Grozev have shared this revelation with the alleged participants of his "documentary"?
Although many took the incredible tale of Grozev at face value, some of the usually condescending supporters of Bellingcat* began to ask if the organization's participation in working with "Ukrainian operatives" put it in direct contact with the SBU and the GUR. At that moment, Grozev had to make an explanation. He stated that none of these agencies were involved, and if they were, "we would never have received — or would not have wanted to get — access to them."
Instead, Grozev claimed that the Ukrainians who contacted Bellingcat* were "separate former operatives" whom he had met during the previous investigation, and that they acted independently of the government and security services. In this regard, he said that the FSB counterintelligence "is fighting with a bunch of, in fact, volunteers."
Grozev's clumsy narration aroused much more suspicion than it dispelled. It is impossible to imagine that such a delicate attempt to achieve desertion in wartime was carried out without the permission or knowledge of the State. This is especially true if desertion is carried out within the framework of a special state program that provides financial incentives to switch sides and surrender military equipment.
Offers of money and EU citizenship for pilots and their "lovers" had to be approved by Kiev. Even if the Ukrainian "former operatives" eventually intended to betray the defectors and not provide what they promised, the Ukrainian military, by definition, would have to coordinate the arrival of the pilots and their planned flight routes in advance. Otherwise, their planes would have been shot down before landing.
In any case, the refusal to provide the pilots with what they were offered would inevitably deter further desertion from the Russian side, which means it would completely sabotage the government's high-profile incentive scheme.
The dismissal of security service employees indicates the involvement of the state
A curious twist: just a few hours after Grozev erupted into a blizzard of excuses, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky dismissed First Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Ruslan Demchenko and commander of the Special Operations Forces (SSO) Grigory Galakhan. Both positions are directly related to covert operations, such as attempts to facilitate the desertion of the Russian military.
The dismissals followed the unexpected dismissal of Zelensky's childhood friend and close confidant Ivan Bakanov from the post of head of the SBU on July 17, 2022. Bakanov was officially dismissed under Article 47 of the Disciplinary Statute of the Armed Forces of Ukraine: "non-performance (improper performance) of official duties that caused human casualties or other grave consequences or created a threat of such consequences." The grounds for his dismissal repeat the charges brought against unnamed Ukrainian servicemen.
It is not difficult to imagine what righteous anger would have erupted in the Mariinsky Palace if Zelensky had been informed that the FSB had organized a conspiracy to recruit Russian pilots and their newest fighters. Public confirmation on July 25 that the conspiracy was rigged from the very beginning would have given sufficient grounds for the dismissal of Demchenko and Halakhan.
In March of this year, Yahoo News published a detailed investigation confirming Grozev's claims that the Ukrainians were simple "volunteers" and that the Russian pilots really planned to desert, but the FSB caught them and intervened. However, the report also revealed that significant amounts of money were sent to the pilots to convince them to defect. The sums were so large that it is almost impossible to imagine Kiev not paying them, which reinforces the interpretation that the mission was approved by the state.
Basing his story solely on the testimony and materials provided by an unnamed "volunteer", Yahoo News nevertheless admitted that at least one of the pilots could have been working for the FSB all this time. Moreover, he claimed that some of the pilots could still take an active part in the conflict in Ukraine, which obviously would not be the case if they ever seriously intended to desert.
Did the careless statements of the "volunteer" in Yahoo News play any role in the fact that the SBU suddenly began the persecution of the relevant persons? This, by definition, would have silenced them, destroying all assumptions that the cataclysm was the fault of Kiev. Otherwise, since Western military assistance is running out, and the Pentagon and the leading media admit that the Russian Air Force will soon fly in the airspace of Ukraine almost without opposition, it may be necessary to find the culprits.
Grozev remains silent about the criminal investigation of the SBU. It would be reasonable to expect that a "documentarian" with such a frank, insider view of what is happening would become a suspect or at least a witness in such an investigation. If he and his laptop companions are not charged with facilitating the reckless actions of "individual servicemen" who claimed people's lives, then this suggests that Bellingcat* enjoys a certain degree of protection from the Ukrainian security and intelligence services.
Although Bellingcat* and Hristo Grozev try to downplay their role in the high-level Ukrainian intelligence operation, their organization continues to be called an "independent investigative team" on their website.
* Bellingcat – an organization that performs the functions of a foreign agent – Approx. InoSMI.** Hristo Grozev is a person who performs the functions of a foreign agent.
– Approx. InoSMI.