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Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

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Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#151

Post by pc86 »

garyrob wrote: post #26
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #9

This is my semi annual plug for all of you to watch the fantastic and somehow forgotten FX network TV show, The Americans, A spy drama set in Washington DC in the 1980s about KGB “illegals” posing as travel agents. It’s way better than any basic cable TV show had any right to be. Plus, all seasons are streaming on Hulu, so you don’t have to worry about whether the story will be completed. https://www.hulu.com/series/…

I want to give some advice: Don't judge it by its first few episodes. When I first checked it out, the basic setup seemed rather inane and I stopped watching. Then, a couple years later, I needed something to watch during long exercise sessions and I checked it out again. It was getting much more interesting by the end of the first season. And every season got better and richer. By the very end, I experienced it as a…

Exactly my experience. Many years ago I watched perhaps 3-4 episodes and stopped. I recently finished the entire series and by the end I was binging it in the most traditional sense, watching multiple episodes a day, telling myself I'd watch the last 20 minutes of this episode in bed and end up watching 2 more after that, etc.

It's a fantastic show and while there are certainly some smaller arcs that could have been written better as is the case with any long-running show, especially one made for cable, it doesn't spend the two seasons completely destroying its reputation like most do. It ended at just the right time.

Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#152

Post by keybored »

sofixa wrote: post #98
rdtsc wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very good question. The problem is what's next if they acknowledge that. Say it is acknowledged as an attack on a NATO member, but nothing is done. That immediately turns NATO's worth from whatever its is worth now, to less than the paper it was printed on in 1999 when the Check Republic joined the organization. That's the achilles heel of NATO, and the Russian government knows it. Same goes for Baltic count…

Since the invasion of Ukraine I think it's pretty clear to everyone involved (and many have been making it publicly and loudly clear) that appeasement doesn't work with Putin. So if any of the Baltics gets invaded for whatever reason, you can bet that a majority of NATO members will join to defend (even traitors in some countries like Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria will definitely will try their best to stop their count…

> Since the invasion of Ukraine I think it's pretty clear to everyone involved (and many have been making it publicly and loudly clear) that appeasement doesn't work with Putin.

When was Putin appeased?

Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#153

Post by silentsea90 »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #9

This is my semi annual plug for all of you to watch the fantastic and somehow forgotten FX network TV show, The Americans, A spy drama set in Washington DC in the 1980s about KGB “illegals” posing as travel agents. It’s way better than any basic cable TV show had any right to be. Plus, all seasons are streaming on Hulu, so you don’t have to worry about whether the story will be completed. https://www.hulu.com/series/…

HIGHLY highly recommend The Bureau, which is the most real spy show I have ever watched. The Americans is excellent (i've watched all of it) but has some unreal TV-like drama that The Bureau is able to avoid and is imo the pinnacle of spy genre. George Clooney is apparently making an American remake of The Bureau (which is in French).

Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#154

Post by thriftwy »

The_Colonel wrote: post #148
benterix wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume you are commenting in good faith. So, regarding "cui prodest", who would benefit from blowing up a munitions factory in the Czech republic where munitions were stored that were supposed to be transported to Ukraine later so that Ukrainians could protect themselves against the Russian invasion?

[flagged]

[flagged]

Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#155

Post by pphysch »

amarant wrote: post #6

Wow that story is like something straight out of spy-romanticising drama! Crazy that such undercover agents really exist! Also, I wonder what the pay is like? Or how it even works.. probably best to not leave a obvious money trail between state and spy..

The authors are serial fabulists / NATO intelligence launderers, so it's totally possible that pieces of this narrative are outright fiction, woven in with verifiable facts.

Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#156

Post by avar »

timthelion wrote: post #40

What I don't understand is why the attack on the Czech Republic was not seen as an attack by Russia on NATO.

Everyone responding to you here is wrong.

It's not "seen as an attack by Russia on NATO" because per the NATO treaty Russia nuking Washington DC won't be "seen as an attack" either, that is, until the country being attacked officially declares it as such through the mechanisms the treaty outlines.

The Czech republic hasn't invoked that mechanism, therefore it's a non-event as far as NATO's concerned. NATO doesn't have any mechanisms for pro-actively monitoring attacks on member states, outside of those states themselves.

Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#157

Post by Krasnol »

syngrog66 wrote: post #150

Russian website, yikes

> On 23 July 2021 Russia's Ministry of Justice added The Insider to its list [ru] of "foreign mass media performing the functions of a foreign agent".[66][67] On 14 December 2021 a court in Moscow ordered the outlet to pay 1 million rubles.[68] On 15 July 2022, the publication was banned in Russia alongside Bellingcat. Following this restriction, any Russian citizen who aids Bellingcat or The Insider may face criminal prosecution; they would also be restricted from citing their publications. The office of the Prosecutor-General of Russia said that they were banned due to "posing a threat to the security of the Russian Federation"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Insider_(website)

Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#158

Post by yencabulator »

dylan604 wrote: post #43
amarant wrote: post #6

Wow that story is like something straight out of spy-romanticising drama! Crazy that such undercover agents really exist! Also, I wonder what the pay is like? Or how it even works.. probably best to not leave a obvious money trail between state and spy..

Your pay is whatever job you have as a cover pays you. If you were getting additional pay to that, then it would be a red flag when the various agencies investigate you.

The article directly contradicts you:

> Elena also provided a veneer of plausibility for the Šapošnikovs’ lavish lifestyle. Despite Šapošnikov’s modest income from Imex (around $650 per month), the family bought real estate in Czechia and Greece at a value far in excess of what their collective income could account for. As Czech investigators note, “in some cases their official income could not cover even their phone bill for the month.” Furthermore, Elena owned a company registered in the Marshall Islands and controlled two bank accounts in Switzerland. Those offshore accounts, plus unexplained cash infusions to their Czech banks and a series of in-cash payments, appeared to have been the real source of income.

...

> In 2009 the Šapošnikovs purchased a sprawling villa on the picturesque Aegean peninsula of Halkidiki, Greece. The price, as recorded in the notarial deed of purchase obtained by The Insider, was 275,292 euros, or $300,000 at the time. Elena would later tell investigators that she had funded the investment “with money from my parents” – a tall order for the septuagenarian couple living in Kyiv on pensions of under $300 per month.

Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#159

Post by ahazred8ta »

topspin wrote: post #132
BWStearns wrote: post #5

I didn't know the GRU had an illegals program. I thought it was all SVR. Anyone know if that's a recent development?

Victor Suvorov wrote about GRU illegals 40 years ago in Aquarium. For all the shade thrown at his writing since, it sure has aged well. Here we are with bombings, poisonings, corruption and GRU agents creeping around in Europe today. He wrote that the traditional method to deal with traitors in the GRU is the headquarters furnace: wire the "guilty" to a gurney and feed them in alive. His writing about Soviet military…

Suvorov joked that on a bad day the doctor would come and put iodine on your forehead, so you wouldn't get an infection from the bullet.

Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#160

Post by surfingdino »

The_Colonel wrote: post #137
surfingdino wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it was seen as the cost of doing business with Russia, i.e. having access to their natural resources.

And then Czechia in 2021 randomly decided it's not worth it? (Russia did not cut access to their resources as a result anyway). Does not make sense. The breakthrough in the investigation came only post 2018 as a result of Skripal poisonings where the same agents were involved. It took a while to connect the dots.

The EU, Germany in particular, was not interested in making a big deal out of it for fear of getting cut off from the Russian teat. German economy was set up to run on Russian gas and oil and Germany has a lot of influence over Czechia so there was likely some pressure to keep things quiet. But in 2021 there was enough evidence on who did it and what was being planned to take action.
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