It looked like a spy agency’s worst nightmare: The unmasking of several agents, and the disclosure of sloppy tradecraft in what appeared to be a bungled intelligence operation.
But heads have yet to roll — at least not publicly — at the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency.
On Thursday, Western governments mounted a coordinated effort to unmask what they claimed were “brazen” efforts by GRU agents to sow chaos on foreign soil.
In a briefing Thursday, the Dutch government said it had foiled a “close-access hack operation” by the GRU aimed at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the world’s chemical-weapons watchdog. The Dutch claimed that the four alleged agents planned to travel next to an OPCW-accredited laboratory in Switzerland, but did not get there because their operation was intercepted.
That same day, Britain accused the GRU of carrying out a worldwide campaign of “malicious” cyberattacks, and the US Justice Department announced criminal charges against seven GRU officers, accusing them of involvement in an effort to deflect attention from Russia’s state-sponsored sports doping program.
The coordinated information dump revealed what appeared to be an embarrassing security breach for the GRU. Details in the Dutch briefing were particularly tantalizing: The head of Dutch counterintelligence named four alleged Russian GRU officers, noting that two of them had consecutive passport numbers, a potential red flag for intelligence agencies.
And then there was the taxi receipt: When detained, one of the alleged agents had a receipt for a trip to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport from Nesvizkhskiy Pereulok, a road bordering what Dutch counterintelligence said was a GRU facility.
The owner of the cab company confirmed to CNN that the receipt was authentic, but added that the driver couldn’t recall whether any of the men named were indeed the passengers. Such details provided fodder for online sleuths, and raised questions among some observers about the GRU’s level of professionalism.

Digital footprints

Unlike Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, the two Russians named by the UK as the suspects in the nerve agent attack earlier this year in Salisbury, England, the four men named by the Dutch on Thursday left more digital traces.
The Moscow Times even reported that Yevgeny Serebryakov, one of the Russian men accused of the attempted OPCW hack, appeared to be a participant in a Moscow amateur soccer league.
So how big a scandal is this in Russia, and how will it play? The case of Petrov and Boshirov proves instructive.
In early September, British authorities released the names of the two men, saying they were GRU agents traveling under aliases. Following the release of those names, Russian President Vladimir Putin described the two men as “civilians,” and encouraged them to come forward.
The following day, Russia’s state-owned RT aired an interview with the two men, who admitted traveling to Salisbury but denied working for the GRU. That prompted insinuations and jokes on Russian media about the sexual orientation of “Boshirov” and “Petrov” as well as their fondness for Gothic spires.
The RT interview was a weapon of mass distraction, turning the Salisbury poisoning into fodder for memes. But the information war continued: After the RT interview aired, the UK investigative website Bellingcat claimed to have identified “Boshirov” as a GRU colonel.
In the coming days, no doubt, we’ll learn more about the identities of the supposed GRU agents. But the Russian response has been to double down on accusations of “fake news.”
On Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova called the UK allegations a “hellish perfume mix,” saying, “The rich imagination of our UK colleagues truly knows no limits. Who comes up with this?”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov played the same note on Friday. Western governments, he said, were driven by “hysteria” and “spy phobia” after the US, the Netherlands and Britain publicly unmasked the alleged Russian intelligence agents.
To be sure, the latest round of spy wars has not been consequence-free for Russia. The US and its allies expelled dozens of Russian diplomats in the wake of the Salisbury poisoning, and the fears of Russian meddling persist: US lawmakers are considering new sanctions to punish Russia over its interference in US elections.

US Senate votes to move Supreme Court nomination to final vote expected Saturday

UPDATE: Stupidly I had forgotten this vital confirmation from Channel 4 News (serial rebel Alex Thomson) of the D Notice in place on mention of Pablo Miller.

Back then I did not realise what I now know, that the person being protected was Pablo Miller, colleague in both MI6 then Orbis Intelligence of Christopher Steele, author of the fabrications of the Trump/Russia golden shower dossier. That the government’s very first act on the poisoning was to ban all media mention of Pablo Miller makes it extremely probable that this whole incident is related to the Trump dossier and that Skripal had worked on it, as I immediately suspected. The most probable cause is that Skripal – who you should remember had traded the names of Russian agents to Britain for cash – had worked on the dossier with Miller but was threatening to expose its lies for cash.
ORIGINAL POST: This comment from Clive Ponting, doyen of British whistleblowers, appeared on my website and he has now given me permission to republish it under his full name:

I have been reading the blogs for some time but this is my first post. Like Craig I was a senior civil servant but in the ministry of defence not the fco. I had plenty of dealings with all three intelligence agencies. It seems to me that the reason none of the MSM are doing any investigating/reporting of the Salisbury affair, apart from official handouts, is that the government have slapped a D-Notice over the whole incident and it is not possible to report that a notice has been issued.
Here is another theory as to what happened. The Russians pardoned Skripal and allowed him to leave (spy agencies have an understanding that agents will always be swapped after an interval – it’s the only protection they have and helps recruitment). In the UK Skripal would have been thoroughly debriefed by MI6 and MI5 (his ex-handler lives near Salisbury). If at some point they discovered that Skripal was giving them false information, perhaps he was told to do so by the FSB as a condition of his release, lives may have been endangered/lost. If he also was also involved in the ‘golden showers’ dossier then elements in the US would have a reason to act as well. The whole incident was an inside job not to kill him, hence the use of BZ, but to give him a warning and a punishment. The whole thing is being treated as though the authorities know exactly what went on but have to cover it up.

Addendum

I meant to add that the policeman who ‘just happened’ to be around was almost certainly the special branch ‘minder’ who was keeping Yulia under surveillance. The media are not allowed to mention the existence of a D notice.

Those of us who have been in the belly of the beast and have worked closely with the intelligence services, really do know what they and the British government are capable of. They are not “white knights”.
I would add it has been very plain from day one that there is a D notice on Pablo Miller.

“Novichok” Postcard: Note the three steady amber lights: this is the highest  degree of the child kidnapping alert. The “Bosh” and his “Pet”, behind the “rov” – moat, marked by the flag with their mixed colors, in the neo-auburn field of the old cemetery, called the Central Europe. 

germany ukraine relations – Google Search

They kidnapped the Junior!

Малого украли! Call 9/11!

Three Lights Amber Alert: Operation “Novichok”!

By Michael Novakhov – 1o.5.18
“Ukraine and her Intelligence Services (“Малой, The Junior, Der Jünger”) are finally kidnapped by the New Abwehr”, says the Demiurge. 
Spread the Knowledge!

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OpinionGet short URL

The Russian embassy in London believes a book by a BBC editor about former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal based on last year’s interviews is used in lieu of his testimony on the events of last March. Annie Machon, former MI5 Intelligence Officer has discussed ‘The Skripal Files’ by Mark Urban with Sputnik.

Sputnik: What do you think about a possible connection between Mark Urban, Pablo Miller and Sergei Skripal?
Annie Machon: I think there’s a likelihood there would be a connection between Mark Urban, Pablo Miller and Skripal. And also the fact that Miller was being named in the press in the immediate aftermath of the poisoning of Sergei Skripal way back at the beginning of March and then it was censored from the media under the D-notice system. And yes, people who serve together in the military and in intelligence often carry on communication, contacts, that sort of thing. And particularly, if you’re someone who is working as a journalist for the BBC, you want to keep any connections you still have within that world in order to get some stories and in order to verify stories.
READ MORE: Skripal Refused to Move to US Under New Identity, New Book Claims
Sputnik: Is there more to Mark Urban’s role than simply a BBC journalist?

Annie Machon:

 So I don’t think Mark Urban has made much of a secret about the fact that he started his career in military intelligence, certainly in the army, and he has gone on to be become a very respected BBC journalist with very good connections to the intelligence agencies and has broken a number of quite hard-hitting stories against these intelligence agencies over the last couple of decades. But yes, he does have very good access to them; they would see him as a useful conduit to put out stories and spin stories and massage what goes out in the media coming out of the intelligence agencies. It’s a sort of two-way process which is good for the journalists but also good for the intelligence agencies as they might get some good coverage. Having said that, Mark has broken a number of stories which have been quite antagonistic to the intelligence agencies too. So I think perhaps he just got lucky here. He might have an old contact who might have put him in contact with Sergei Skripal. He got some interviews which have allowed him to produce a book about a man who is world famous now because of the attack he was subjected to earlier this year.

READ MORE: Putin: Skripal Not Rights Defender, But ‘Traitor’ and ‘Scumbag’ (VIDEO)
Sputnik: What the purpose would be for Mark Urban to produce this book at the current time?
Annie Machon: I think it’s confirming the narrative that has been evolving ever since the attack happened in March in Salisbury. And a lot of information has been coming out now which seems to indicate that it must be the Russians, it certainly was these two people that have been identified by intelligence agencies, and yet we still have no hard evidence. Now people will turn round and say ‘well, you won’t get hard evidence because it’s intelligence’ but in this case, it was a police investigation and they have had months to carry out a forensic investigation. And the fact that both the Skripals have now disappeared and not allowed to make public statements  — apart from that very regimented interview that Yulia did a couple of months ago – I think tells its own tale. I am getting increasingly concerned about how the narrative, which is mainly based on a lot of speculation, mainly coming out of conspiracy websites like Bellingcat is now being, sort of, ossified into ‘this must have happened, this is real, true fact’ rather than just speculation because it’s damaging at a very sensitive time the relations between Britain and Russia.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect Sputnik’s position.

Page on this site | Salisbury Poisoning 2018 News Review from mikenova (8 sites) – Headlines

Salisbury Poisoning 2018 News Review from mikenova (15 sites)
Sergei Skripal – Google News: Salisbury church hosts ‘From Russia With Love’ concert months after Sergei Skripal nerve agent attack – The Independent
salisbury poisoning – Google News: Salisbury Case ‘Problem’ for UK Intelligence, ‘The Skripal Files’ Author Says – Sputnik International
Sergei Skripal – Google News: Salisbury Case ‘Problem’ for UK Intelligence, ‘The Skripal Files’ Author Says – Sputnik International
salisbury novichok – Google News: Vladmir Putin’s bungling spies branded ‘dumb Bonds’ after botched bid to sabotage Salisbury Novichok probe – The Sun
Novichok Signatures – Google News: Caught red handed: The five key steps to catching the hapless, beer-guzzling GRU spies who now face global … – Daily Mail
Germany AND Novichok – Google News: Vladmir Putin’s bungling spies branded ‘dumb Bonds’ after botched bid to sabotage Salisbury Novichok probe – The Sun
Salisbury Poisoning – Russia News: “Novi Chok” Update In Tweets – 4:58 PM 10/4/2018
Skripal – Russia News: “Novi Chok” Update In Tweets – 4:58 PM 10/4/2018
Salisbury Poisoning – FBI News Review: “Novi Chok” Update – 4:50 PM 10/4/2018
Global Security News: The Salisbury Connections – 4:18 PM 10/4/2018
Novichok Signatures – Google News: Kavanaugh’s strategy pays off as reaction to FBI probe breaks down along partisan lines. – The New Republic
Salisbury Poisoning – Russia News: Skripal – Poteyev Connection | Boshirov-Chepiga Ukrainian Intelligence Services Connections – 1:06 PM 10/4/2018
Salisbury Poisoning News Updates – FBI News Review: Germany BND Novichok Connections – 12:56 PM 10/4/2018
salisbury novichok – Google News: West vows to fight back as Russian spies caught hacking Novichok probe – The Sun
Global Security News: The Salisbury Connections – 10.4.18
Salisbury Poisoning – Global Security News: The Salisbury Connections – 10.4.18
salisbury novichok – Google News: Russian spies ‘tried to hack’ chemical watchdog probing Novichok attack – Salisbury Journal
Sergei Skripal – Google News: Putin calls poisoned ex-spy Skripal a ‘scumbag’ and ‘traitor’ – The Globe and Mail
Sergei Skripal – Google News: Russia’s GRU Targeted Chemical-Weapons Watchdog, MH17 Probe, Dutch Officials Say – RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty
salisbury poisoning – Google News: Russia Attempted to Hack UN Probe of Salisbury Spy Poisoning – Bloomberg
salisbury poisoning – Google News: Russia Attempted to Hack UN Probe of Salisbury Spy Poisoning – Bloomberg

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• Abwehr “The Demiurge” – Update 10.3.18: “Operaz-z-zion Z-z-zkripal”October 3, 2018

Аваков заявил о причастности «отравителя Скрипаля» к бегству Януковича :: Политика :: РБК

mikenova shared this story . Глава украинского МВД Арсен Аваков передал своему британскому коллеге информацию о причастности полковника российской разведки Анатолия Чепиги к событиям 2014 года на Украине. Эту версию накануне озвучил журналист Сергей Канев Арсен Аваков (Фото: Сергий Харченко / Zuma / ТАСС) Глава МВД Украины Арсен Аваков на встрече с британским коллегой Беном Уоллесом подтвердил, что Киев считает одного из подозреваемых в участии в отравлении Сергея Скрипаля причастным к бегству Януковича из страны в 2014 году. Об этом говорится в пресс-релизе МВД Украины по итогам переговоров двух стран.

• Germany and Novichok | German Intelligence Knew ‘Novichok’ Nerve Agent Composition in 1990s – Reports | Mike Nova’s Shared NewsLinks – 2:06 AM 10/3/2018: Экс-охранник Януковича: Боширов сопровождал президента Украины в Крым | Police investigate shooting at Hobart Walmart that left 2 injuredOctober 3, 2018
• Germany and Novichok – 4:56 PM 10/2/2018 – Germany obtained novichok nerve agent sample in 1990s, reports say | The IndependentOctober 2, 2018

Abwehr The Demiurge – YT Playlist | Related Videos Review – Page 

Abwehr “The Demiurge”

Operations “Trump Card”, “Call 9/11”, and “MuckCart-hy” – By Michael Novakhov

Strolling through an airport in Amsterdam, these four Russian agents would soon be caught red-handed carrying out a botched cyber-attack.
Yesterday they faced global humiliation as the authorities exposed their failed attempt to hack into the chemical weapons watchdog which was investigating the Salisbury poisonings.
A devastating trail of evidence shows how Moscow’s team of spies from the GRU military intelligence service – operating under the name Sandworm – attempted to use a rig of computers, antennae and phones hidden in the boot of a rented car to gain access to the organisation’s IT systems.
Yesterday, in an unprecedented step, Dutch authorities produced a dossier of evidence showing how the spies tried to launch a ‘close-access’ cyber-attack from a street in The Hague.
It was in April this year – little more than a month after the Salisbury attacks – that the bungling GRU squad attempted to infiltrate the headquarters of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in the Dutch city.
Here, we detail how the unit was caught-red handed attempting to carry out the brazen cyber-attack.

1. PLANNING IN MOSCOW
At 7.09am on the morning of April 9, Russian GRU agent Yevgeny Serebriakov, 37, opened up his laptop and began to Google the acronym ‘OPCW’.
At that time, the OPCW was conducting an investigation into the use of novichok, a military-grade nerve agent, in the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury on March 4.
It was also examining an alleged chemical attack by Syria’s Russian-backed military in Douma.
Serebriakov’s searches took him to Google Maps and to the headquarters of the OPCW in The Hague.
The following day, one of his GRU colleagues jumped in a taxi outside a GRU barracks in Moscow and headed towards the airport.
A scrap of paper found by Dutch investigators shows that Russian spy Alexei Morenetz, 41, paid 842 roubles, or £9.60, to travel the 20 miles from the city’s Nesvizhskiy Pereulok street to Sheremetyevo Airport, just north of the capital.
The receipt carries Morenetz’s name and signature and is dated April 10, the same day the unit arrived in Amsterdam.
The day before, one of the four hackers had activated a brand new Sony Xperia mobile phone. Data shows that when it was switched on, it connected to the nearest mobile mast, located just a few streets away from the same GRU barracks.
Last night it emerged that Morenetz is registered at an address in Moscow known to be a Russian military intelligence base. The specific address is believed to be home to Military Unit 26165, a unit of the GRU military intelligence service. Another of the Russians, Alexei Minin, also has an address related to the Russian military. He is registered as living at a building on Narodnogo Opolcheniya street in Moscow. This is the legal address of the military academy run by the Russian defence ministry.

2.FLYING TO AMSTERDAM
The four-strong GRU unit flew into Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport on April 10 using diplomatic passports.
They were met by an official from the Russian Embassy, who was captured on CCTV escorting the group through the arrivals hall.
Passport details show the hackers travelled under the names of Morenetz, 41, and Serebriakov, 37, who were described by Dutch officials as ‘cyber operators’.
The other two men, thought to be ‘supporting agents’, were named as Oleg Sotnikov, 46, and Alexei Minin, 46.
Investigators found the issue numbers on the passports belonging to Morenetz and Serebriakov were sequential – suggesting they were printed at exactly the same time.

After landing in Amsterdam, the group bought equipment that would later be used in their hacking attempts.
Receipts show that at 4.14pm they spent almost £200 on batteries and power supplies that would later be used to run laptops and mobiles used in the hack attempt.
The following day, on April 11, Sotnikov and Minin hired a non-descript dark grey Citroen C3 from a local car rental company. They then began a reconnaissance mission around the OPCW.
Pictures found on Minin’s camera phone show how they checked out the location, with pictures also showing various views of the Marriott Hotel, where they stayed, which is conveniently located next door to the OPCW building.
3.THE BRAZEN HACK
On Friday, April 13, the unit carefully parked their Citroen C3 hire car on the road closest to the OPCW headquarters.
They carried out what is known as a ‘close-access’ cyber-hack. This type of infiltration must be done in close physical proximity to the target network.
It can involve tricking legitimate users of the network to log in to a fake system, or it can involve looking for unsecured laptops using the network that they can compromise and gain access to. The hackers had already failed to infiltrate the OPCW using so-called ‘remote spear phishing’ techniques from Russia. This involves sending targeted individuals emails which attempt to trick them into giving away sensitive information, or which download malware to their computer.

4. A DRAMATIC ARREST
As the four spies stood next to their car parked up near the OPCW, Dutch counter-intelligence services, who had been monitoring their activities, swooped.
In a panic, one of the GRU agents threw his phone to the ground to smash it and destroy any evidence it contained.
But the Dutch investigators opened the boot of the car to discover the unit’s mobile hacking kit. This contained a battery, transformer and a laptop connected to a smartphone and an antenna pointed towards the OPCW building. Another antenna, on the car’s parcel shelf, had been hastily coved by a black overcoat.
The Dutch officers began to undercover a host of other evidence which would tie them not only to this hacking plot but to others round the world.
The four were carrying at least ten other mobile phones and more than £33,000 in cash – 20,000 in euros and 20,000 in US dollars.
They also had with them a plastic bag filled with empty Heineken beer cans and soft drink bottles, which they appeared to have taken from their hotel room. ‘They were clearly not here on holiday,’ the head of the Dutch intelligence service joked yesterday.
The hackers were escorted back to the airport and expelled from The Netherlands. They returned to Moscow.
British Government officials yesterday said it was for the Dutch to explain why the suspects had not been arrested.
Investigators later discovered the four had been planning to travel by train to the OPCW laboratory in Spiez in Switzerland. Tickets carrying the names of all four agents show they had planned to depart on April 17 and head to the Swiss capital Bern via Basel.
5. THEY’D DONE IT BEFORE
This was not the first time the agents had travelled to Switzerland. Intelligence collected from a laptop belonging to one of the GRU officers held in The Hague shows it had connected to wifi at the Alpha Palmiers Hotel in Lausanne in September 2016.
At that time, a conference of the World Anti-Doping Agency was taking place.
It had banned Russian athletes from competing amid a state-sponsored doping scandal.
The conference was also attended by officials from the International Olympic Committee and the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport, who found themselves victim of a cyber-attack.
One official had their laptop compromised by ‘APT28’ malware, which then spread to the Canadian Centre’s systems. Hackers also compromised the IP addresses of the International Olympic Committee.
The laptop belonging to Serebriakov, which was seized during the Dutch operation, revealed he had carried out ‘malign activity’ in Malaysia.
During that operation, the GRU attempted to collect information about the fate of Malaysian airlines flight MH17, which was shot down over Ukraine in July 2014 by a missile that belonged to a Russian military unit.
Hacking attempts targeted the Malaysian government and institutions including the Attorney General’s office and the Royal Malaysian Police.
The findings of the Dutch intelligence agencies were swiftly shared with British allies.
The GRU spies were found to be being part of what the Russian military refer to as Unit 26165, or GRU 85 Main Special Service Centre.
The unit is home to the Russian military’s best mathematical minds and is believed to have run the hacking campaign that sought to influence the 2016 US presidential election.

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