WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? When rent-an-Army outfit Wagner Group was given permission to recruit warm bodies from Russian prisons, who could imagine any bad outcomes? According to press accounts, Wagner has recruited “tens of thousands of inmates, including murderers and domestic abusers, to fight some of the war’s bloodiest battles.” While many have been killed in combat, others who survived six months in Wagner uniforms, have reportedly been given presidential pardons and some are returning to their hometowns. And some of them are returning to their old habits – including murder. Others are reportedly investing their Wagner wages in “alcohol and prostitutes.” The Kyiv Independentreported on April 23rd that according to the Ukrainian General Staff, there was a shootout between Wagner and regular Russian soldiers in the Luhansk Oblast. This is reminiscent of the Iran-Iraq war when observers were torn on who to root for - or against.
WHAT ARE THE RUSSIANS UP TO? OK, things might not be going well for the Kremlin in Ukraine or on the home front – but that apparently hasn’t dissuaded them from poking their noses elsewhere – like the United States. The Department of Justice announced April 18th that four U.S. citizens and three Russian nationals have been charged with working for the FSB trying to conduct a “malign influence campaign” in the United States. Were the U.S. officials high powered politicians or media members? Nope. They were low-level officials in St. Petersburg, Florida. Here is a link to an FBI wanted poster for one of the Russian nationals, Natalia Burlinova, who is charged with conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud the United States – but her last known whereabouts were Moscow, so good luck with catching her.
LAST WEEK IN LEAKS: Discordant notes continue to play out from the cache of documents allegedly launched into unauthorized hands by a Massachusetts Air National Guard airman. You will recall that among the leaks, were reports that CIA analysts believed senior Mossad officials were backing protests in Israel against Prime Minister Netanyahu’s judiciary policies. Well, Bibi called BS on that (as reported by The Times of Israel) – telling NBC News that he “values American intelligence” and therefore thinks they are smart enough to know that “..under Israeli law, junior members of Mossad can participate in demonstrations, not senior members” and that he thinks that is what “led to this misunderstanding.” And also, in the “who could have predicted?” category – The Washington Post reports that the leaked documents show that following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the country has become “a significant coordination site for the Islamic State” and bad guys there, are planning terrorist attacks in Europe, Asia and engaging in “aspirational plotting” against the United States. We’re not rocket scientists, but that can’t be good.
ON YER BIKE: Just in time for Earth Day…or something…comes a story from the tabloid “Daily Star” which is peddling a tale that the British Secret Intelligence Service (AKA MI6) has launched a program to encourage their employees to commute to work via bicycle and forgo the supercars that James Bond is known for. The paper says this is part of a government initiative to “promote healthier journeys and reduce pollution.” We are not sure about that – but the article is a great way to launch some awesome puns, like” “spokes for spooks.” By the way, “On yer bike” is British slang for a rude way of telling someone to go away.
MAYBE CIA LIKED THE ROLLING STONES BETTER? That is the best explanation we can come up with for a new conspiracy theory about the murder of ex-Beatle John Lennon’s 40+ years ago. The Daily Mail says that British author and TV producer David Whelan is working on a book which will speculate that Mark David Chapman who has been in jail since 1980 for shooting Lennon in New York City – might not have been the real shooter and/or if he was – maybe the CIA or some other evil outfit made him do it. Whelan says there is a dispute between the official account of the shooting and other witness accounts about whether the singer was shot from the back or from the front. He also says he is revealing for the first time, the names on a hitlist that Chapman had compiled – that included CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite, Tonight Show host Johnny Carson and former First Lady Jackie Kennedy Onassis. Why does Whelan think the CIA might have been involved? Well, one of the psychiatrists who visited Chapman in prison (and was hired by the prisoner’s defense attorneys) supposedly was an expert in hypnosis and was involved somehow with the CIA’s MK Ultra program decades before. Whelan takes a stab at why some dark force might want Lennon dead. Among his guesses: religious organizations upset that in 1966, Lennon declared the Beatles “more popular than Jesus” or conservative political forces unhappy with Lennon’s criticism of Richard Nixon years before his murder.
POCKET LITTER: Dead Droplets and bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
BAD PITCHES: The Cipher Brief is experiencing great growth – and one of the good things about that is that all kinds of organizations are reaching out to us hoping we will cover issues important to them. One of the bad things about that is that all kinds of organizations are reaching out to us hoping we will cover issues that are important to them— but not to us. We keep telling them that we are about national security, foreign policy and intelligence – but that doesn’t always sink in. For example, in the past couple weeks we have received pitches from publishers and PR agencies asking us to interview authors and do reviews on books with tips on how to buy a home during a period of high interest rates, a novel about a pot-smoking poet’s affair with a Russian artist, a collectors’ edition of a series of books about sharks, someone looking for ink about a tattoo artist seeking a world record by creating a micro tattoo of a hummingbird, a book with practical tips on how to have a “good divorce,” a novel described as a “Sapphic, Victorian, horror romance drenched in blood and drama,” and a book about the crisis in civility. We were going to tell that last outfit to buzz off – but eventually thought better of it. For everyone else out there – we would like to tattoo this on your keyboard: keep those pitches (about national security, foreign policy, and intelligence) coming – but we are not biting on books about sharks.
HERE IS OUR PITCH TO YOU: You have probably come across stuff and thought – “that would be a good Dead Drop item.” Well, we might have missed it while fending off PR firms wanting us to cover novels about pot-smoking poets. So, you will be high in our esteem if you send your news tips to: TheDeadDrop@theCipherBrief.com.
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