Als Ergänzung zum Text bsd172 vom 08.10.2018.

Bellingcat journalist and UK MP on ID of Russia poisoning suspect

London - 9 October 2018

1. SOUNDBITE (English) Eliot Higgins, Founder of Bellingcat:

"So last night revealed the identity of Dr Mishkin, a former colonel in the GRU. We are now revealing more information about him, we know his hometown, our partners in Russia, The Insider, has actually visited his hometown and spoken to local people who not only told us that our identification was correct but he also received the Hero of Russia award, the highest honour you can receive in Russia. Apparently his grandmother has a photograph of him receiving the award from (Russian President) Vladimir Putin himself so the the fact Putin denied that he knew anything about it is a clear lie. So we've managed to actually catch him (Putin) in a lie twice now because the other suspect we identified was also a hero of Russia and would have received it from Vladimir Putin himself."

++BLACK FRAMES++

2. SOUNDBITE (English) Eliot Higgins, Founder of Bellingcat:

"In this specific investigation we used a combination of Open-Source information and also information we receive from sources in Russia. But we used Open-Source information to actually verify this so some of it could be online databases, leaked information that's been online for a long time. But it is, you know, the last ten years we've seen a massive increase in the amount of information available online and that has enabled people such as the team Bellingcat to do Open-Source investigations and make all kinds of findings."

++BLACK FRAMES++

3. SOUNDBITE (English) Eliot Higgins, Founder of Bellingcat:

"Well, it's a very small town so everyone seemed to know who he was, especially as he was a hero for Russia. So lots of people seemed to know who he was. We also reached out to his former classmates and we discovered they'd actually been told not to talk to anyone about his identity. One of his former classmates actually revealed that to us, but he's a very well-known figure in his hometown by the sounds of it. One thing we found very interesting is this town is actually very remote and hard to access and in fact it's often snowbound. So his claim that he couldn't walk through the slush in Salisbury to get to the cathedral seems rather ridiculous at this point."

++BLACK FRAMES++

4. SOUNDBITE (English) Bob Seely, Conservative MP for the Isle of Wight, Foreign Affairs Committee:

"It is it is remarkable and it's due to two big trends that are shaping the world of politics and conflict. Firstly, the explosion in digital technology, the fact that everyone now has an iPhone which can do so many things. And secondly, the growth of democratic and online activism which the Syrian war, the Ukrainian war, the Skripal case - it's given a target for all these online activists to focus on to dig for the truth."

++BLACK FRAMES++

5. SOUNDBITE (English) Bob Seely, Conservative MP for the Isle of Wight, Foreign Affairs Committee:

"It's very embarrassing but one shouldn't just judge the GRU by their failures because they have had many successes as well. I think the last couple of operations have failed but maybe that's due to overstretch or over-ambition on their part but they have mounted successful operations elsewhere and continue to do so to this day. And morality apart, the Crimean annexation, to get soldiers to act in such a nuanced and subtle way was a remarkable achievement. So they are very formidable. So one shouldn't just write them off because they have messed up this operation and they made a mistake in the Montenegro coup as well by clearly not pulling that off."

(++EDIT ENDS ON SOUNDBITE++)

STORYLINE:

The investigative group Bellingcat on Tuesday revealed more information about the second of two suspects in the poisoning of an ex-spy in Salisbury.

On Monday on its website Bellingcat said the man British authorities identified as Alexander Petrov is actually Alexander Mishkin, a doctor working for the Russian military intelligence unit, known as GRU.

Founder of Bellingcat, Eliot Higgins, told British broadcaster ITN that the group's partners in Russia had visited the man's hometown in a remote area of Russia and spoken to people who knew him.

He said they were told that Mishkin had received he Hero of Russia award from Russian President Vladimir Putin himself.

"The fact Putin denied that he knew anything about it is a clear lie. So we've managed to actually catch him (Putin) in a lie twice now because the other suspect we identified was also a hero of Russia and would have received it from Vladimir Putin himself," Higgins said.

Bellingcat investigators will divulge more details about their findings in Parliament later on Tuesday at the invitation of Conservative MP Bob Seely, who told ITN that despite their apparent mistakes with relation to the Skripal case, the GRU should not be underestimated.

"One shouldn't just judge the GRU by their failures because they have had many successes as well. I think the last couple of operations have failed but maybe that's due to overstretch or over-ambition on their part but they have mounted successful operations elsewhere and continue to do so to this day," he said.