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Yesterday a Russian "chef" was arrested after drunkenly bragging about a sabotage operation to disrupt the Olympic opening ceremony. https://theins.press/en/po
by dralley 2y ago
Yesterday a Russian "chef" was arrested after drunkenly bragging about a sabotage operation to disrupt the Olympic opening ceremony.
https://theins.press/en/politics/273350 https://theins.press/en/politics/273350
> On May 7, he was in Russia and due to fly from Moscow to Istanbul, where he’d catch a connecting flight back to Paris the next day. Except he couldn't. He got so fall-down drunk at Istanbul Airport that he was barred from boarding his plane. Instead Griaznov took a taxi to the Bulgarian border, where another car delivered him to St. Vlas, a resort town on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria, where Griaznov owns property.
> Griaznov stayed at his apartment for a few days before moving on to Varna, a Bulgarian city 60 miles north of St. Vlas. From there he flew on to Paris. During one of his beach-side dinners he got drunk again and let slip to the neighbors that he had a special assignment this summer in Paris to disrupt the opening ceremony of the Olympics. At first the neighbors were incredulous. That’s when Griaznov brandished his FSB ID, witnesses told The Insider. A few days later, Griaznov made his way to Varna and took a flight from there. Before flying to Paris, Griaznov made a call to his FSB boss and informed him that the operation was on track. Griaznov even said he’d recruited “one more Moldovan from Chisinau.”
It would be humorous if it weren't so serious.
- Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 2y agoThe official website of the insider seems to be thins.ru, not theins.press The article exists on both though https://theins.ru/en/politics/273350 https://theins.ru/en/politics/273350
- pxeger1 2y agoPotentially more trustworthy source: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2024/07/25/the-secret-life-of-agent-k-the-russian-spy-suspected-of-trying-to-destabilize-the-paris-olympics_6698331_7.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2024/07/25/the-secr...
- orbital-decay 2y agoIt's a collaboration with The Insider and Der Spiegel. >By Lucas Minisini, Thomas Eydoux, Charles-Henry Groult, Der Spiegel and The Insider
- dralley 2y agoLeMonde and The Insider collaborated on the story, which is noted on both versions of it.
- pxeger1 2y agoI’m just not initially inclined to trust a website ending in .press or .ru as much as I would le Monde, so I posted this to demonstrate that it can be trusted.
- throwaway5752 2y agoThis also has details https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/jul/24/russian-chef-arrested-in-paris-over-alleged-large-scale-olympic-games-plot-paris-2024 https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/jul/24/russia... This is obviously a Russian act of sabotage in retaliation for French support of Ukraine. All the downvotes of their mighty troll army can't make it any less obvious.
- q1w2 2y agoWhat a failure of our western surveillance organizations that the only spies we catch are the ones that are so bad at their jobs that they get drunk and brag about it. How do we fail so badly to counter foreign influence, sabotage, and espionage operations? The examples of successful foreign operations in Western countries is so long and embarrassing - high level people operating for DECADES, changing MAJOR western policies, and sending back to their foreign handlers CRITICAL data and intelligence. If this continues, we are absolutely going to get destroyed.
- slowmovintarget 2y agoToo much politics (optics, spin, outright gaslighting), too little governing (maintaining rule of law, securing against actual enemy action...). Basically, Western leaders can't hear you over the sound of how awesome they're trying to tell you they are.
- John23832 2y agoYou don’t know that to be true. You also do not know who has been caught. Western intelligence do not have “report daily figures to slowmovingtarget” in their checklists.
- slowmovintarget 2y agoVenezuela is emptying their prisons and sending the released convicts to the U.S. as "migrants." Those same criminals are now doing things like impersonating delivery drivers and performing home invasions. Too little governing. Has nothing to do with whether the intelligence community publicizes its results, which I agree, they shouldn't. They should be stopping these kind of things, though. They should actually prosecute those "protesters" that assaulted police on camera the other day. They released them instead. Too little governing. Meanwhile, we get press tours saying how awesome and kind and empathetic their policies are. Look how inclusive we are! Look how many check-boxes we've checked on the fashionable political stance list! You know that thing high muckety-muck said? They never said that. You remember that wrong. There must be something wrong with your recall. You must be racist or insane to think that. Interest rates? Those aren't a problem, what are you talking about? Too much politics, optics, and gaslighting. And those are just the local examples. It's happening in Britain, it's been happening in France and the rest of Europe, and when people complain, they're told to shut up and stop being so selfish. Why wouldn't we see the operational failures of law enforcement to keep citizens and infrastructure in the West safe as an outgrowth of the other outrageous failures of leadership we keep seeing day after day?
- ein0p 2y ago[flagged]