I was quite amazed of this video. Absolutely worth watching. Also our most dear friend, Barbos should watch this.
Sleeper Agents, FSB Assassinations, & GRU Black Ops Unit 29155
— Russia's Shadow War on NATO
Listen to the whole speech - the video is quite short:
Chapters:
00:00 - Russia's Covert War on NATO Territory
01:03 - FSB Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko
01:25 - GRU Black Ops Unit 29155 - Sabotage Bombings in the Czech Republic and Bulgaria
03:53 - GRU Black Ops Unit 29155 - Poisoning of Bulgarian Arms Dealer Emilian Gebrev
04:47 - Putin's Personal Hitman: FSB Agent Vladim Krasikov
05:24 - Recruitment of Native EU Citizens on Telegram
06:59 - Russian Operatives & Sleeper Agents in Europe
In short:
Despite being an expert on covert operations, Weiss believes there is nothing shadowy about what's been going on for nearly 20 years - it's war, he says, that Russia has been waging across NATO and EU territory. He notes that the Russian soldiers have been given state medals, positions in the Russian presidential administration, and serving as diplomats abroad. Weiss says that this war has almost always involved Ukraine, specifically Western efforts to arm Kyiv before, during, and after the full-scale invasion, beginning in 2011 even before Crimea. This was has caused civilian casualties and evacuations of communities in 3 different NATO countries. He says it has involved sleeper agents deeply embedded in Western society, who have aided and abetted terrorist operations. Weiss says that now Russia is relying on native citizens of Western societies who are recruited remotely to carry out operations.
Weiss notes the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006, using a radioactive isotope, polonium-210 - later discovered all over London, Hamburg, Germany, and commercial airliners. Europe has been most hit by GRU's Unit 29155, a special black ops unit of Russia's military intelligence service. In 2011, they bombed an ammunition storage facility in Lovnidol, Bulgaria. It was destined for Georgia, re-arming after the 2008 war, and Ukraine, still 3 years from its Revolution of Dignity and under Viktor Yanukovych. Planted in Vrbětice, it traveled 800 miles of Europe, through major population centers of Bratislava, Belgrade, Budapest, and Sofia. In 2014, Unit 29155 blew up the Czech facility, destroying ammunitions for Ukraine and anti-Assad rebels in Syria. 29155 recruited a family of Czech spies, the Shaposhnikovs, who bought a Greek villa which 29155 used as its safe house. They also destroyed forensic evidence of earlier crimes.
They also sought to eliminate the arms dealer selling weapons to Ukraine and Georgia, Emilian Gebrev. The CEO of EMKO, 29155 poisoned him with a Novichok-like substance in 2015. Alexander Mishkin and Anatoliy Chepiga poisoned Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, an English town. One also led an insurrection attempt in Montenegro in 2016, before their accession to NATO.
In 2019, Vladimir Putin's personal hitman, FSB assassin Vladim Krasikov, killed Chechen dissident and former military commander Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, in Berlin's Tiergarten Park. Krasikov was recently traded to Russia, and Putin was willing to give up Alexei Navalny.
GRU is on the radar of every counter-intelligence organization, so they now emulate non-state actors like ISIS, recruiting remotely using social media platforms like Telegram, paying in cryptocurrency. They're across NATO, setting fire to a shopping center in Warsaw, an IKEA warehouse in Vilnius, a bus depot in Prague, an industrial estate in East London, and a metals factory in Berlin.
They recruit Latvian and Estonian amateurs with criminal backgrounds. Some went to Kyiv in January of 2022, to firebomb a military facility. They put graffiti on the NATO Cyber Defense Centre in Tallinn, saying the institution was hacked by Russian hackers. They never meet their handlers.
Weiss says Russian spies and operatives are still here. CEO of the German arms giant, Rheinmetall, has been earmarked for assassination, due to Germany's Ukraine support. This summer, the French arrested Kirill Gryaznov, a Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef, influencer, and Russian TV reality dating star, who's been living in France for over a decade. He's an FSB operative who planned a kinetic operation during the Paris Summer Olympics. There were operations at the Charles de Gaulle Airport, against Emmanuel Macron's policy in Ukraine, and drumming up anti-Semitic fears.
Weiss says the GRU has tried to overthrow democratically-elected governments since founding in 1918. In the 1920s, they fomented insurrections in Germany, recruiting Communist Party members who they trained to do operations, including terrorism. But now they have greater technological capability.
Weiss closes his testimony suggesting that the West has been very non-vigilant in paying attention to these operations. He believes that Western countries need to be on the lookout for future assassinations, firebombings, and sabotage operations."
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In my opinion, the democratic countries are still very lame.
I think that some main players does not want Russia to lose the war.
www.foreignaffairs.com
