Russia reports arrest of "Ukrainian terrorist cell": Bizarre video details point to staging

Created: 04/28/2022, 17:01

By: Bedrettin Bölükbasi

Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin.

His secret service claims to have foiled an assassination attempt on a Russian journalist.

(Archive image) © Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP/dpa

In the Ukraine conflict, Russia's secret service claims to have arrested a Ukrainian "terror cell".

But there are many indications of a staging.

Munich - In the Ukraine conflict, the term "false flag" operations appears again and again.

Ukraine uses these “false flag operations” to refer to certain Russian activities aimed at framing Ukrainian soldiers or intelligence operatives for alleged “terrorist attacks” on Russian territory.

Thus, according to Kyiv, Moscow wants to create a permanent justification for the Ukraine invasion.

Apparently staged photo and video material is almost always used, which is supposed to show alleged “Ukrainian terrorist cells” at work or when they are arrested by Russian security authorities.

This material is then disseminated by Kremlin-affiliated state media.

Also on Monday

Russia claimed to have captured such a "terror cell" and supported this claim with videos.

However, a closer look at the material reveals that it could again be a staging.

Putin's secret service is said to have caught "Ukrainian terrorist cell" - staging exposed?

The General Prosecutor's Office in Moscow announced on Monday the arrest of alleged assassins who, according to Russian ruler Vladimir Putin, are said to have been preparing for an assassination attempt against a "prominent Russian television journalist".

According to the Russian news agency Tass, Putin blamed the American secret service CIA, among others, for the alleged conspiracy.

So they want to "split Russian society and destroy it from within,"

quoted the Russian president as saying.

The journalist mentioned by Putin is said to be the Kremlin propagandist and Putin loyalist Vladimir Solovyov, the Russian agency Ria Novosti reported, citing the Russian domestic intelligence service FSB.

At the same time, the state media published footage of the alleged raid on the "Ukrainian nationalists".

The video shows how a special unit storms the apartment, arrests the alleged assassin and confiscates objects.

However, the production could have been exposed precisely because of these recordings.

Russian journalist Vladimir Solovyov (left) and Vladimir Putin, President of Russia (archive images, montage) © Mikhail Tereshchenko/ITAR-TASS/Imago

Putin staging?

Alleged "Ukrainian terror cell" with a video game and a funny signature

In the footage of the apartment of the alleged "terror cell" you can see a lot of Nazi memorabilia such as photos of Adolf Hitler and T-shirts with swastikas.

A meth lab, six fake Ukrainian passports, eight Molotov cocktails, six pistols, 1,000 rounds of ammunition, a shotgun and a wig with green hair were also seized, according to Russian sources.

So far everything seems normal, but some elements don't quite fit the scene.

Aside from the fact that the swastika t-shirt looks brand new and not worn or used at all, there are other notable points in the video that raise question marks.

The material seized by the Russian unit also includes three games from the simulation series The Sims 3 and a book with a neo-Nazi inscription.

The book is verbatim signed with "illegible signature".

This immediately raised suspicions about the authenticity of the incident.

The "Sims 3" games could have been a misunderstanding of the instructions by the actors, reported the

.

So it could have been about three SIM cards instead of the game.

The same applies to the signature “illegible signature”.

Here, too, it is possible that the request to sign the book with an illegible signature was misunderstood, "illegible signature" was taken too literally and entered as such.

Putin's secret service probably staged the arrest of "terror cell" - "Who would have thought it?"

The alleged raid by Russian security forces has been joked about on social media.

The British BBC journalist Francis Scarr, for example, jokingly described the confiscated items as a "Ukrainian neo-Nazi starter pack, a product of the FSB" and added: "Who would have thought that they (alleged assassins, editor's note) would be suitable for Sims 3 would be interested in?"

Berlin-based Eastern Europe expert Sergey Sumlenny commented that the FSB fabricated an alleged "plot" to assassinate Solovyov.

He referred to the signature in the book: “One of the 'evidence' is a neo-Nazi inscription in a book.

Signed 'illegible signature'.

Yes, the FSB was instructed to sign the book with an 'illegible signature' - and they did!'

However, authors of the investigative portal “Bellingcat” stated that the group that claims to have arrested Russia actually signs their messages on portals such as Telegram and VK with the words “illegible signature”.

Most likely, the alleged raid is still a staging, but the investigative portal believes that the signature is not a mistake and was entered on purpose.

By the way, Ukraine sees another “false flag operation” by Russia in Transnistria.