In a series of investigative reports in 2018 and this year, Bellingcat and its media partners disclosed the existence of an elite unit within Russian military intelligence (GRU) engaging in clandestine overseas operations. This unit consists of approximately twenty graduates of elite Russian military schools, most having received hands-on combat experience in the wars in…
Joint investigation by Bellingcat, Der Spiegel, the Insider and the Dossier Center. In the first part of this joint investigation, we disclosed that the assassin of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili detained by German police traveled on a valid Russian passport issued under the fake identity of “Vadim Sokolov”. We concluded that the usage of a validly issued…
On September 10, 2019, CNN reported that the United States helped a Russian government official flee after working as a spy for American intelligence in 2017 — all reportedly due to concerns regarding President Trump and his administration’s handling of “classified intelligence”. The CNN report was sparse on details, but it was enough to identify…
Written by Michael Colborne with contributions from Oleksiy Kuzmenko They’re devoted to a brand of neo-Nazism so blatant, including openly glorifying Hitler, that even its leader admits is too “hardcore” for the public space. Wotanjugend, which its founder described in 2016 as an online “mini-university for supporters of right-wing ideology,” has praised far-right terrorists like…
In a previous joint investigation with BuzzFeed News and the Insider, Bellingcat disclosed the inordinately frequent travel of two Italian politicians from the close circle of the head of Italy’s far-right party Lega Nord, and self-styled “Italian Trump” Matteo Salvini. As previously reported by Italian media and BuzzFeed, one of the frequent travelers and advisers…
What we know so far Last Friday, 23 August 2019, Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a Georgian citizen living in Germany, was assassinated in downtown Berlin while having lunch on the way to a mosque for Friday prayer. Khangoshvili was assassinated with three bullets, two of them fired at close range at his head. The killer, who was…
On August 10, 2019, a 21-year-old man reportedly murdered his 17-year-old stepsister before attempted to attack a mosque just outside of Oslo, Norway; he managed to injure only one person in the attack. The Norwegian claimed he had been inspired by another 21-year-old man in El Paso, TX, whose massacre on August 3 was driven…
A sophisticated phishing campaign targeting Bellingcat and other Russia-focused journalists has been much larger in scope than previously thought, and has lasted at least several months. Bellingcat has identified dozens of targeted individuals across Europe and the US, with the earliest reported attack dating back to April 24 2019, and some evidence suggesting the campaign…
Previous reporting by news outlets L’Espresso and Buzzfeed News has revealed that Gianluca Savoini, a close aide to Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, took part in negotiations for clandestine funneling of Russian funding to Italy’s Lega Nord party. The negotiations — the contents of which came to light thanks to an audio recording obtained…
You can listen to the fourth episode of the Bellingcat Podcast on the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 (MH17), “Manhunt”, by subscribing on any major podcast application by searching “Bellingcat”, including at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and TuneIn. You can manually add the podcast RSS feed to your favorite podcast app with the URL:…
