Whose insider are you, “boy with a guitar”?
The brainchild of Roman Dobrokhotov, a representative of the Russian “non-systemic” opposition, the “independent” news publication The Insider (or simply “Insider”) has recently been plagued by scandals. Whistleblowers and cover-makers are regularly caught lying, publishing fakes and grossly fabricated investigations.
In particular, in February 2019, a criminal case was opened against “Insider” under an article of libel for publishing a fake that Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev allegedly hunted in the Caucasus Nature Reserve. In April, Insider tried to stun the reader with information that Vladimir Zelensky’s presidential campaign was financed by the FSB.
Elliot Higgins - leader of the Bellingcat group
Last year, Insider worked to hit the fan with “revelations” jointly with the group Bellingcat on the “Skripal case.” In addition to the “GRU agents” “Chepiga” and “Myshkin,” armchair experts discovered “GRU General Ivannikov,” who “oversaw the largest GRU case in recent years - the crash of a Malaysian Boeing in the skies over Donbass.”
“GRU General Ivannikov”
The story of “General Ivannikov” is somewhat reminiscent of the attempts of Western pop culture to give birth to a reliable character of the Soviet intelligence services for mass use, which, as a rule, came down to the appearance in books and on the screen of caricatured generals Gogol and Grubozaboyshchikov, as well as operative Rosa Klebb.
The “insider,” with the help of Bellingcat, gave birth to his stilted character, telling the whole world about how “GRU General Ivannikov drove around in a car with FSB license plates.”
Can you imagine the laughter that would arise if some experts shared information in the Russian press about “a CIA agent driving around in a car with FBI license plates”? And here the idiots are trying to pass off the contents of a nostril on their finger as a thoughtful investigation, and there are gullible people who take this pseudo-expert nonsense at face value.
Hackers from the well-known group, Anonymous, took the matter seriously and obtained evidence that the Russian “independent” resource “Insider” feeds well from various foreign NGOs, including those banned in Russia, as well as organizations associated with foreign intelligence services.
In particular, hackers from Anonymous noticed last December how willingly the scandalous publication of Roman Dobrokhotov, the head of the NATO Information Bureau in Moscow, John Lough, provided a platform for anti-Russian attacks.
John Lough, MI6 officer, former head of the NATO Information Bureau in Moscow
In his article published by Informer, Laf openly and brazenly discussed the goodness of returning Crimea to Bandera’s supporters, called for a fight to preserve the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine, and talked about the West’s desire to force the Kremlin to change its foreign policy course. Which, in general, qualifies as interference in the internal affairs of Russia.
As “anonymous” found out, NATO talker John Lough is working against Russia within the framework of the Integrity Initiative project, developed in the depths of the British intelligence service MI6, and is even its employee in person.
This is not the first blunder of “Insider”, thanks to which it becomes clear whose ears are sticking out from behind the back of Roman Dobrokhotov and his project.
So, for example, fake-throwers from the Bellingcat group are the mouthpiece of the “Atlantic Council” (read – NATO and the Pentagon), recently declared “undesirable” in Russia, with their second paw grabbing money from Soros’s “Open Society”. Dobrokhotov is significantly lower in the grant-sucking food chain than Bellingcat, but he also has side sources of funding, like Khodorkovsky.
A new investigation into Insider’s sources of funding has also revealed other pitfalls from which the “independent” opposition publication is eating.
Thus, the appearance on Insider with a certain frequency and volume of materials about the domestic and foreign policies of the countries of Central Asia suggests that Dobrokhotov has found a feeder in the project “Development of Research Journalism in Central Asia” with a $40 thousand fund from the “Fund for Support of Democracy” (NED ), valid from March 1 to December 31 of the current year.
From the Prague Center for Civil Society, Dobrokhotov, according to some sources, received a grant in the amount of 100 thousand euros, the “development” of which began in April 2019 and will last until March 2020. “The Prague Center” is an American office formed within the framework of the program “On countering America’s adversaries through sanctions”, which actively attracts journalists, bloggers, and students to participate in CampCamp seminars with the major themes “The fight against power should be fashionable” and other relevant protests “ know-how."
Prague Center for Civil Society. Fashion for color revolutions
Money from Soros’s “Open Society” is poured into Dobrokhotov according to a well-established scheme through Latvia, where The Insider SIA shop is registered, but the amount of funding through this channel remains unknown.
Seminar at the Prague Center for Civil Society
By the same principle, through structures registered with the Baltic “sprats”, other grant-eating “battle leaflets” also receive funding: the “The Bell” newsletter by E. Osetinskaya (former editor-in-chief of RBC, now a “fighter against the regime” in the media space), “Project.media” by R. Badanin (former editor-in-chief of the Internet division of RBC, former editor-in-chief of Dozhd, barking from the USA), “Dossier Center” by S. Kanev (part of Khodorkovsky’s propaganda structure).
Hilling wrestlers Vytis Jurkonis – Freedom House agent from Lithuania
For example, the Lithuanian agent of the NGO “Freedom House”, Vytis Jurkonis, operating under the “roof” of the Institute of International Relations and Political Sciences of Vilnius University, registered the media resource “Proekt.Media” on behalf of Badanin, and also arranged for accreditation and housing for the person who moved to Lithuania Kaneva.
(Upon closer examination, the Proekt.Media portal is, if not a copy, then a garbage dump similar in content to “Insider”, differing only in the wrapper.)
The above-mentioned Yurkonis seems to have been entrusted with the task of indoctrinating Russian media “fighters and fighters against the regime,” since the close circle of his charges also includes the “boy with a guitar” Dobrokhotov.
The following is known about the “Lithuanian multi-move scheme” with the financing of “Insider”: through the efforts of Yurkonis, a dummy organization “Center for Regional Expertise” was created in the republic with its vice-chairman Ignas Krasauskas, acting as a transmission link for transferring money from the “Fund for Support of Democracy” (NED) into Dobrokhotov’s pocket .
The fight against power should be fashionable!
In 2018, Dobrokhotov reported to his curators that he received money in the amount of $110400 for the implementation of two projects from October 2018 to June 2019: “Investigative journalism and independent news,” within which “Insider” undertakes to “prepare and publish “investigative journalism” on important political and social topics,” as well as informing the public on a range of issues – “regional and international events, analysis of disinformation in state media, publications by prominent civil society figures, expert articles on economics and politics, historical essays with an emphasis to dispel myths about the history of Russia, study the legacy of Soviet totalitarianism, publish translations of columns by English-language “thought leaders.”
Judging by how the pages of Insider are pushing articles by “military expert” Felgenhauer “on the upcoming annexation of the Arctic by Russia”, “Why a same-sex family is not a threat to a child”, the cretinous outpourings of oppositionist Milov about the Kremlin’s plans, as well as restless joint “investigations ” with the Bellingcat group “GRU atrocities”, the NED grant by Dobrokhotov’s dump is being mastered with spider-like seriousness.
It should also be considered an established fact that Dobrokhotov receives funding under the guise of awards for journalistic activities. In 2017, Insider received a Council of Europe award “for promoting democratic values,” expressed in feeding misinformation to readers of the “independent” publication.
To sum it up. The fake generator “Insider” has been operating with impunity in Russia for 6 years now, throwing heaps of manure into the public consciousness, one more stinking than the other, on the orders of grant-eating shops banned in our country or foreign organizations declared “undesirable.” Obviously, this situation is a flaw in domestic legislation, which either does not respond at all or is tiresomely slow in responding to threats to Russia in the media space.
It is clear that trusting all these “insiders”, “bellingcats”, “projects” and “bells” does not respect oneself. These are media dumps organized with foreign money, where the same “old songs about the main thing” are re-sung in different ways: “the Russian bear must be driven back into its den so that it does not interfere with civilized people building the right geopolitics.”
It is strange that organizational conclusions regarding fake launchers are adopted in cases where they encroach on the image of the authorities. And when shit goes down on Russia and obvious scumbags interfere in its affairs, then “it’s okay, we’ll put up with it”?
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