Category Archives: Russia

Have you Met John Mark Dougan, a Former Florida Deputy Sheriff?

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I continue to see friends on Facebook and a few other social media sites claiming that Ukraine’s President Zelensky and his wife are using millions if not billions of U.S. aid money to buy fancy cars and mansions….ehhh….c’mon people do that work please and stop getting punked by a former Marine and sheriff deputy from Florida that too fled to Russia….yes…fled and he is loving his deep fake life there and you are helping him win the bot/disinformation/propaganda war…and many members of Congress have bought into all this….but save yourself the humiliation and read on…

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It is not just here in the United States by the way…Europe is getting pummeled too:

The article looks real enough, though petrolheads may note the misspelling of Tourbillon. It even cites as evidence a video recorded by a dealership employee describing the supposed sale, and a picture of a Bugatti invoice for €4.5 million made out to Mrs. Olena Zelenska. If you were under any doubt, the site’s name should lay your fears to rest: Verite Cachee or, in English, hidden truth.

In fact, the video is a deepfake, the invoice is falsified, and the entire site is part of a Kremlin-linked influence operation, using AI-generated content to deliver a payload of Russian talking points. The false attack on Zelenska was designed, it seems, to hint at corruption.

Veritecachee.fr is one of two sites set up less than two weeks after French president Emmanuel Macron announced a surprise election, the other called France en Colere (Angry France). The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) and the Tow Center have connected both to a network of websites linked to John Dougan, an American former police officer now living in Moscow and known for spreading Kremlin-backed disinformation. This network was first identified by researchers at Clemson University in December last year.

Even as this Dougan-affiliated network has targeted the French election, another Russia-linked disinformation operation, unmasked by French authorities earlier this year, has ramped up its activity in Europe. In June, the “Portal Kombat” network launched ten new sites, mostly aimed at Europe. Another five targeting Eastern Europe were set up in April and May. Read it all here for further context. Zelensky just bought a brand new $4.5 Million Dollar Bugatti for his ...

*** In part below:

It starts with a NewsGuard analyst happening upon what appeared to be a fledgling Washington D.C.-based news site promoting Russian propaganda. Unbeknownst to her, this was six months after her boss and his family had been threatened in a YouTube video that included an aerial shot of his home and calls to his unlisted phone number by a Russian disinformation operative working from a studio in Moscow. It turns out that this D.C. website, those threats to NewsGuard’s co-CEO, and what NewsGuard discovered were dozens of similar hostile information operations — including a “documentary” that the Russians used as an excuse to invade Ukraine — were all orchestrated by the same man — John Mark Dougan, a former Florida deputy sheriff who fled to Moscow after being investigated for computer hacking and extortion.

As of this writing, NewsGuard has discovered 167 Russian disinformation websites that appear to be part of Dougan’s network of websites masquerading as independent local news publishers in the U.S. and 15 films on Dougan’s since-removed YouTube channel. Ranging from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky siphoning off money meant to aid the war against Russia so he could buy an estate in England owned by King Charles, to a non-existent U.S. bioweapons lab in Ukraine being the reason the Russians had to invade that country, these concocted stories have been amplified on social media accounts to reach a broad global audience of more than 37 million views—including 1,300,000 views of just the narrative about Zelensky buying the king’s estate.

As a journalist based in Washington who scrutinizes the credibility of news outlets as a profession, I was familiar with the landscape of trusted local publications in the area. DCWeekly did not appear to be one of them.

I first noticed the site when it published an article reporting that the Ukrainian Azov Battalion was recruiting in France. It carried the byline “Jessica Devlin,” who was described as a “distinguished and highly acclaimed journalist.” Another scoop: The U.S. had bought a mansion for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Vero Beach, Florida.

Everything about the website and these articles was a red flag: The site presented itself as a credible new local news source yet was propagating fabricated narratives that smelled of Russian influence.

It turned out that “DCWeekly” is not actually based in the nation’s capital. Nor is “Jessica Delvin” a real person. As uncovered by researchers at Clemson University, the site operates from Moscow, hosted on an IP address belonging to John Mark Dougan.

His is a name I would come to know well over the coming months.

In further briefings, I learned that Dougan, a former marine, had been an officer in the Sheriff’s Department in Palm Beach County, Florida, until 2016, when he fled to Russia and was granted asylum after being targeted in a computer hacking scheme. Since then, I was told, he had become well known to the FBI and, as they put it, “our sister security agencies” as a Russian operative who specialized in producing some of the Russians’ most elaborate disinformation campaigns and narrating them as if he were an independent American journalist. 

Relatedly, it appeared that the aerial video of my home in Dougan’s video was not a simple Google satellite shot. Instead, it had probably been taken by a drone that someone had hired. [Dougan denies this; see below.] I was also told that those same sister agencies reported that Dougan was still in Russia. “So he poses no imminent threat to you,” the lead agent on the case said.

But he knows where I live and the Russians must have people all over the United States, I said. And he must have followers here on his YouTube channel that could act on their own. The FBI agents agreed. This was more serious than a few random crank emails. In a meeting a few days later with three agents and my wife sitting at our dining room table, we agreed on a multifaceted security plan to be implemented by a private security company.

I now live in a home surrounded by twelve motion-detecting security cameras, monitored remotely by the security service, and filled with dead-bolt window and door locks and other reminders of Dougan’s video—which produced multiple new death threats.

***

Related reading from the BBC 

Russian warships Arrive in Cuba, Complete with Hypersonic Missiles

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Meanwhile, our Commander in Chief has left the United States for a G7 Summit in Italy.

Cuban armed forces said in a statement Thursday, confirming the military exercises first disclosed by U.S. officials on Wednesday.

The Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces said the Russian missile frigate Admiral Gorshkov, the nuclear sub Kazan, the oil tanker Pashin and the salvage tug Nikolai Chiker are included.

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(exact text from USNI)

THE PENTAGON – A nuclear Russian submarine carrying guided missiles with a range of 1,000 nautical miles is operating off the East Coast as part of Russian missile drills in the Atlantic.
Kazan, a Yasen-M-class guided missile submarine, is part of a naval action group the Russian Ministry of Defense deployed to the Atlantic. The group is bound for the Caribbean as part of military drills ordered by the Kremlin against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, according to the MoD.

On Tuesday, Kazan and the advanced guided-missile frigate Admiral Gorshkov tested anti-ship missiles in the Atlantic at targets with a range of more than 350 miles before resuming its transit to a previously scheduled port visit to Havana on Wednesday, the Russian MoD said in a statement.

Ship spotters are tracking the Russian action group off the coast. The group was operating just east of the Florida Keys as of Tuesday afternoon and is under surveillance by at least three U.S. guided-missile destroyers and a P-8A Poseidon anti-submarine aircraft, according to public flight and ship tracking data.

A Navy spokesperson referred USNI News to the Office of the Secretary of Defense when asked about the U.S. warships. A Pentagon spokesperson would not confirm the details, but provided a Monday statement about the Russian exercises.

“Russia will conduct heightened naval and air activity near the United States. These actions will likely culminate in a global Russian naval exercise this fall. We are expecting that Russia will temporarily send combat naval vessels to the Caribbean region and these ships will likely conduct port calls in Cuba and possibly Venezuela,” reads a statement from OSD.
“There may also be some aircraft deployments or flights in the region. Russia’s deployments are part of routine naval activity and we are not concerned by Russia’s deployments, which pose no direct threat to the United States. “

While Russian ships operating in the Caribbean is not new, the submarine and the frigate are among the most advanced Russian warships and their presence is the largest visit of Russian Navy ships to the region in years. For example, last year the training ship Perekop sailed to Havana.

The modern Kazan and Gorshkov both field a variety of anti-ship and land attack weapons. While it’s unclear what weapons the two ships used during the Tuesday test fire, they both can field the 1,000-mile range 3M-54 Kalibir NK land attack cruise missile, the P-800 Oniks anti-ship missile and the 3M-22 Zircon hypersonic anti-ship cruise missiles.

According to a report in RUSI, Kazan could field up to 32 P-800s, 40 Kalibirs and an unknown number of Zircons.

The Kalibir, modeled on the U.S. Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles, is a key weapon for the Yasen submarines.

The silent operation and weapon load out of the 13,800-ton submarines are reasons U.S. officials have used to describe the boats as some of the most capable in the world.

For the Yasens, “long-range strike missions appear to … a primary task. This will likely necessitate a change in how NATO manages the anti-submarine warfare challenge in the High North, given that a strategy of barrier defense at the Greenland–Iceland–U.K. gap may actually do little to impact Russian submarines, which may have little need to traverse this barrier in order to achieve their operational ends,” according to RUSI.

Last year, then-commander of U.S. Northern Command Gen. Glen VanHerck said the deployment of cruise-missile submarines off the coast of the U.S. is increasing and is a growing concern for homeland defense.

“[The risk is] absolutely increasing. Within the last year, Russia has also placed their [Yasens] in the Pacific,” he said.
“Now not only the Atlantic, but we also have them in the Pacific and it’s just a matter of time – probably a year or two – before that’s a persistent threat, 24 hours a day. … That impact has reduced decision space for a national senior leader in a time of crisis.”

Have you Seen the Documentary Wirecard? You Must…

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We often wonder why Germany is so feeble with policy when it comes to NATO obligations and further, helping Ukraine. The short reason is the present and past government of Germany has been compromised with purpose including BND, their intelligence service.  This includes former Chancellor Merkel and Scholz.

How much does the United States know about this? All of it. Why? It is due to one particular point man….Jan Marsalek. Think of billions of dollars by fraud…hence the documentary Wirecard…..take a pause and go watch it…come back to this article soon… for the rest of the story.

Wanted by Interpol due to a Red Notice.

Jan Marsalek: Flüchtiger Ex-Wirecard-Vorstand wendet sich über ...

All the 007 movies combined hardly measure up to the rest of the Marsalek story. Furthermore, it is a wonder that at no time did Tucker Carlson discuss the topic of poisoned/dead Russians during his meeting with President Putin. Wonder why? Well, it seems that the network by Jan Marsalek wormed all the way through Europe, especially Germany, Britain and even Spain. Was this a scandal previously agreed to between Carlson and Putin to not discuss mostly due to the Wagner Group and Ukraine, Libya or Syria?

Many intelligence agencies worked on the case including the CIA, but though many journalistic and intelligence reports, Germany…not so much. In fact Chancellor Scholz never bothered to met with any Wirecard executives as was his responsibility during his time as the German Finance Minister…compromised and a willing accomplice playing out today as Germany for the most part plays a very tepid role in the war between Ukraine and Russia and perhaps beyond to Georgia and Estonia.

Tucker Carlson has railed on President Zelensky and his work to shit down the Orthodox church. Why would Zelensky do that in the first place? Well….the Russian Orthodox Church is highly compromised by Putin also as a willing accomplice and has deep historical connections to the Orthodox church in Ukraine. Why is that bad? Jan Marsalek, now living in a small town in Russia continues to be a spy and operates as a Russian priest under the total management of the Russian Orthodox church….

So…below are some links from several independent investigative sources that explain the rest of the story….well the story til now that is. The first link is the easiest to understand, so start there. The second link is a long very detailed summary and the third is rather short and sweet.

In the end…all things we think we know…is hardly the full story.

The Double Life of Former Wirecard Executive Jan Marsalek

Since the collapse of Wirecard, Jan Marsalek has been on the run and is one of the most wanted men in the world. A DER SPIEGEL investigation has revealed how he went underground and that he’s a Russian spy.

And then most recently is the software in use today….

During his time as Federal Minister of Finance, Olaf Scholz (right) and his State Secretary Jörg Kukies had their cell phone communication protected with security software from Virtual Solution. Behind the company is an investor with interesting connections
During his time as Federal Minister of Finance, Olaf Scholz (right) and his State Secretary Jörg Kukies had their cell phone communication protected with security software from Virtual Solution. Behind the company is an investor with interesting connections
© IMAGO / photothek
The owner of an IT company that ensures communication from authorities maintained contacts in the area of the ex-wirecard board. Most federal ministries – and so far Olaf Scholz and his most important employees rely on the products

When top officials from the federal government write emails with their smartphones, many of them have a small addition at the bottom: „ Sent with SecurePIM “. SecurePIM is a security solution that is intended to protect the mobile communication of the authors and the exchange of confidential documents. The software is used by numerous federal authorities, right up to the top floors: by state secretaries, German diplomats and ambassadors worldwide, the management level of the Bafin financial regulator. Also under emails from the new Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his closest confidants, who move into the Chancellery with him, was at least in his time as Federal Minister of Finance: „ Sent with SecurePIM “. source to read on 

Then just last week –>Documents from the U Committee show: A lobbyist for the notorious payment provider Wirecard was given access to all of the Republic’s files under Interior Minister Herbert Kickl (FPÖ) – the former CSU politician is now being summoned to give evidence. The latest revelations surrounding the fugitive Wirecard manager Jan Marsalek, who is suspected of spying for Russia, have given the case new urgency.

 

Biden’s Immigration Policy is Designed to Alter the House of Representatives

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A few months ago, this website published an article describing the new development in Texas called Colony Ridge. It is north of Houston and is only for migrants. Anew voting district underway to add another U.S. Representative for only migrants appears to be the mission. But let’s look at some other details for context and history.

  • During the Clinton administration, there were two initiatives launched to stop illegal immigration: Operation Gatekeeper and Operation Hold the Line. In fact during this time, the San Diego Sector was the area enduring the most chaos. so, President Clinton got his Department of Justice to act and AG Janet Reno made several visits and was shocked with what she saw.
  • The Biden Department of Justice is not prosecuting criminal cases of illegals that were previously deported.
    NYC secures $106M in federal funding for reimbursement of migrant costs after months of delays and the $106 million to NYC is just a portion of the $150 aid package promised by the Federal government thanks to Senator Chuck Schumer.
  • DHS failed to file paperwork which caused 200,000 cases to be tossed out under Biden and Mayorkas.Last week, the second-in-command of violent Colombian street gang Los Santanás was apprehended in New Braunfels, Texas, a suburb of San Antonio, by Homeland Security agents working with state and local authorities. He was subsequently handed over to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    Aderbis Pirela, 29, was on INTERPOL’s top 10 most wanted list and has warrants out for his arrest in Colombia in connection with at least four murders, as well as drug trafficking and extortion. He had been in the United States since January after being allowed in by claiming political asylum.

    According to NBC15, Pirela managed to flee Colombia last year before making his way through Central America up to the Mexico-US border. Upon being granted permission to enter, he and his fellow gang members began conducting their business out of a migrant shelter.

    On January 27, authorities were made aware of his actions and began searching for him.

    As Fox News reports, police and the mayor of Bogotá are hoping national law enforcement will ensure he ends up in prison and is rendered unable to continue carrying out his crimes while behind bars.

  • The Chinese have built major marijuana grow operations in several states across the country. Who is buying the land? Some arrests have been made. 
  • A Lebanese man arrested at the southern border told U.S. authorities he traveled from the Middle East because he was a member of the terrorist group Hezbollah and planned to build a bomb once in the United States, the Washington Examiner has learned.
  • Even more interesting,Vadim Wolfson, a friend of Putin, a Russian oligarch was arrested in Texas.The arrest came from a federal warrant issued by the Southern District of New York. According to court documents, Wolfson and others have been indicted on federal charges related to violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and money laundering. Is he an operative of the Kremlin? Appears to be so according to the charging documents.
  • Bringing it forward many years to just yesterday as reported in part by the Boston Herald (pay-wall):
  • Do we really want these people here that will have representation if the U.S. Congress?

One Sided Human Rights When it Comes to Gangs and Terrorists

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We continue to watch in horror and fear the deadly terror in Israel and Gaza and rightly so. It must be known however, these types of attacks and terror go far beyond the Middle East. There is an organization funded by the usual. George Soros but also other nefarious people and that is the Human Rights Watch. (travel over to Wikipedia and read their summary, it sounds great but the reality is not so much)

As we pray for the hostages to not only survive but to be released in Gaza, it is happening in other corners of the world including what the Russians have done to Ukrainian citizens and especially children and then there is Haiti and Africa. Human Rights Watch is not so into caring about those locations.

Let’s begin with Haiti as it is news to all of you. It was just a week ago that the Associated Press reported the following in part:

A heavily armed gang surrounded a hospital in Haiti on Wednesday, trapping women, children and newborns inside until police rescued them, according to the director of the medical center, who pleaded for help via social media. Ulysse said members of Haiti’s National Police force responded to his call for help and arrived with three armored trucks to evacuate 40 children and 70 patients to a private home in a safer part of the city. Among those delicately evacuated were children on oxygen, he said.

Ulysse identified those responsible as members of the Brooklyn gang, led by Gabriel Jean-Pierre, best known as “Ti Gabriel.” Jean-Pierre also is the leader of a powerful gang alliance known as G-Pep, one of two rival coalitions in Haiti.

The Brooklyn gang has some 200 members and controls certain communities within Cite Soleil, including Brooklyn. They are involved in extortion, hijacking of goods and general violence, according to a recent United Nations report. Earlier this year, at least 20 armed gang members burst into a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders and snatched a patient from an operating room. The criminals gained access after faking a life-threatening emergency, the organization said.

UN: Haitian Gangs Invading Central Haiti source and read more here

By the way, the United Nations actually has a permanent peacekeeping office in Haiti….so much for that, even while the United States is often encountering migrants fleeing from Haiti. Oh yes, Human Rights Watch is completely tied to policies from the United Nations also.

Now let’s move back over to Ukraine shall we?

CBS News reported only last week about 19,000 children kidnapped by Russian forces and the real numbers could be as high as 300,000 in total.

As an example:

Last October, Nikita was living in a boarding school for disabled children when the Russian authorities ordered all 86 kids there to be transferred deeper into Russian-controlled territory.

Polina (translated): I came home after work, I opened Instagram and there was a picture of my child– Nikita. With a caption, Russia is taking children.

Polina says the Russians played a cruel game of hide and seek – moving Nikita at least three times in eight months – including to an orphanage in Russia

Then The Guardian reported last March the following in part:

What do we know about the Ukrainian children taken by Russia?
The court’s pre-trial judges said there were “reasonable grounds to believe that each suspect bears responsibility for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population, and that of unlawful transfer of population from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation, in prejudice of Ukrainian children”. The judges said they had chosen to unseal the names of the suspects in an effort to prevent further crimes.

Reports first emerged last spring that Ukrainian children in occupied territory were being taken to Russia, and even being adopted by Russian families. Russia has presented its actions as a humanitarian mission to save Ukrainian children from the war. But Ukraine has accused Russia of genocide and described its actions as a war crime.

Who are the children involved?
The alleged abductees include children taken from Ukrainian state institutions in the occupied areas, children whose parents had sent them to Russian-run “summer camps” from which they never returned, children whose parents were arrested by the Russian occupying authorities, and children who were orphaned by the fighting.

Where are the children from?
The vast majority of Ukrainian children taken by Russia are from occupied areas of southern and eastern Ukraine: Kherson region, Kharkiv region, Zaporizhzhia region, Donetsk and Luhansk region, as well as a small area of Mykolaiv region.

How many children have been taken?
Russia has admitted to holding at least 1,400 Ukrainian children it describes as orphans, though it said at least 2,000 had travelled to Russia unaccompanied. In addition, several hundred children from the occupied territories remain in Russia after they attended “re-education” camps with the consent of their parents but were then not returned.

What has happened to the orphans?
Since the invasion, at least 400 Ukrainian orphans have been adopted by Russian families, according to the Ukrainian Regional Center for Human Rights, which has calculated its figure from statements by the Russian state. Russia has said 1,000 more are waiting to be adopted.

Lvova-Belova, the Russian children’s commissioner, has herself described “adopting” a 15-year-old child from Mariupol, the south-eastern Ukrainian city that was devastated and occupied by Russian forces.

But many of these Ukrainian children have living relatives, who are often desperately searching for them. About 90% of Ukrainian children who were living in state care at the time of the invasion were “social orphans”, meaning they had relatives but those family members unable to take care of them.

How about China? Well they have an estimated 40,000 child slaves in Congo mining for cobalt and lithium for batteries, mostly for the EV industry. Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) published a summary from a congressional hearing the exploitation of children in Africa for the economic and global agenda for China.

There is a foundation called Walk Free Foundation that studies modern day slavery and publishes an index. The estimate is 30 million people worldwide are living in modern day slavery from places such as India, China and Africa.

Bringing it closer to home, with the protests across America to Free Palestine, no one says enough about the fear from violence and theft for individuals and businesses with smash and grabs and now crash and grabs, meaning stolen cars are used to break into businesses.

So. exactly where are the leaders of any sort? Where is the Human Rights Watch? Where is the Department of Justice which by the way formed a legal team to work at the Hague for the International Criminal Court? How about Interpol and Red Notices or the FBI? How about the District Attorneys do some real work on car-jacking, human trafficking, the sex trade, migrant crime., cartel narcotic trafficking…and all the rest.

Where are the protectors if no one is above the law?