'NOTHING MORE FASCINATING' THAN A GOOD MUTINY: CIA Director Bill Burns gave a rare public interview this week, saying that he's seen nothing more fascinating than Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin's mutiny last month as he marched troops toward Moscow. Burns, a career diplomat before taking over the Agency, said he believes Prigozhin was 'making it up as he went along', and that he predicts that Russian President Vladimir Putin's next move will be to separate his mutinous former caterer from the shadow army he still seems to control. Burns did have some rather candid advice for Prigozhin though. After referring to Putin as the 'ultimate apostle of payback' he suggested that Prigozhin 'not fire his food taster'. Cipher Brief Expert and former Acting Director of CIA also wrote a great piece for The Cipher Brief about just how damaged Putin is from the whole ordeal that everyone seems to agree, isn't over yet.
RUSSIAN HACKERS KNOW WHAT DRIVES DIPLOMATS IN UKRAINE: Well, to be exact, they know what the diplomats want to drive. Reuters says hackers believed to be working for Russian intelligence services, sent the same notice to diplomats working at least 22 foreign embassies in Kyiv. It contained a modified real advertisement placed by a Polish diplomat selling his used BMW. “Cozy Bear” hackers are believed to have copied the ad, lowered the price to attract interest and then tempted diplomats to click on the link, which of course, had embedded malicious software in the ad.
VATNIK SOUP KNOWS WHAT DRIVES RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA AND DISINFORMATION: We recently stumbled across a fun website/Twitter account/Youtube show associated with the notion “Vatnik Soup.” For the uninitiated, “vatnik” is a Russian slang term which refers to people in Russia who are seen as overly patriotic, conservative and nostalgic for the good old Soviet Union. The Vatnik chef is a Finnish guy named Pekka Kallioniemi, who appears to be a one-man Bellingcat. He likes to do deep dives on people and organizations prone to repeating Kremlin talking points. There is a ton of stuff on the website presented in various formats. Kallioniemi’s Twitter account lists his geo-location as Langley, Virginia but we think he is just kidding – since that is not actually a location – and because his LinkedIn profile puts him in Finland. But wherever he is – the website is educational.
WASHINGTONIAN KNOWS DC’S SECOND OLDEST OCCUPATION: Washingtonian Magazinerecently ran a very long piece declaring that DC is the “World Capital of Espionage.” Other cities may disagree – but if your magazine’s name is “Washingtonian” it is not hard to guess where you come out judging the spy capital of the planet. The article includes sections on memorable and memorably weird moments in DC-area espionage, as well as how to tell if your neighbor is a spy, how the media reports on spying, what Hollywood gets wrong (and right) about spying – and much, much more. So much, in fact, that we haven’t quite finished reading the piece.
OPPENHEIMER MOVIE DID NOT BOMB: Despite what some folks have heard, the early reviews and box office expectations for the film that opened July 21 have been good – but some members of the public have gotten the impression that the film’s director, Christopher Nolan caused an actual nuclear weapon to be detonated so the flick’s visual effects would look realistic. Nolan said in interviews that he did not use CGI (computer generated imagery) to achieve cinema verité. The director said that he was flattered that some folks thought he might go to such lengths to recreate the Trinity A-bomb test – but he was able to make movie magic without violating the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
ADDING INSULT TO INJURY: What might be worse than getting your application to join the Australian Security Intelligence Organization turned down? How about being notified via email that you didn’t make the cut and tons of other folks are copied on the message? Blimey. According to the Aussie website, The Mandarin, ASIO (the Aussie domestic intelligence organization) intended to send a “No thanks, mate” email to a bunch of folks with all of them on the BCC line. But (and you have probably figured out where this is going)…someone accidentally put all the names and email addresses in the “CC” line. Crikey. We are not sure how many disappointed ASIO wannabees were on the email – but now they all know who to commiserate with. We’re surprised that ASIO has so many applicants that they can’t send individual turn down emails – but we are told that this report is “fair dinkum” (Aussie for “authentic.”) Before Americans look down their noses at such sloppy communication practices, – we need to mention this week’s item about thousands of emails going astray for decades – because users who intended to send them to addresses that ended in dot MIL…forgot the ‘I’ and sent them to Mali whose domain names end in dot ML.
WITH ALL DUE RESPECT: Florida Governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has released a detailed proposal intended to (in his words) “…rip woke out of the military.” There are lots of provisions in the lengthy plan which he says will “restore military standards,” “break the swamp & promote accountability,” and “turn the tide against Biden’s military recruitment crisis.” We’ll let you decide how woke you want the military to be – but one provision caught our eye. Governor DeSantis says he plans to enforce article 88 (contempt toward officials) of the UCMJ. And he advised that the provision applies to retired generals and admirals in addition to active-duty personnel. He says that “Any service member may be prosecuted for “contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Security, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present.” Interesting to note the “governors” on his sacrosanct list. We guess this all means that if you are retired military, live in Florida, and want to say anything rude about Governor DeSantis – you better get it out of your system now.
STOLEN VALOR – UKRAINE EDITION: We’re pretty sure that in almost every war, someone has falsely pretended to be a heroic participant. The latest example – the Ukraine war. Military.com presents a lengthy takedown about James Vasquez, a 48-year-old American who has been running around portraying himself as a courageous foreign fighter standing up to the Russian invaders. At one point, he had more than 400, 000 twitter followers. But eventually, genuine participants in the war alleged that he had a penchant for releasing videos of himself in areas where heavy fighting had recently occurred – but showing up generally after the smoke had cleared. Turns out, he apparently made up his past U.S. military achievements – and was discharged from the Army reserve as a private first class. He told the The New York Times in March that he “…had to tell a million lies to get ahead.”
POCKET LITTER: Dead Droplets and bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
THEY MISPLACED WHAT? You know how annoying it is when you can’t find your car keys or sunglasses? Well, imagine the chagrin of the Census bureau which, according to the Associated Press, misplaced a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier. Well, they didn’t exactly lose USS Abraham Lincoln, but the Census folks mistakenly reported that the 5,000 sailors assigned to the carrier were in San Diego, the ship’s home port. But sprawling Naval Base San Diego encompasses parts of two municipalities and the spot where the sailors disembark the ship is just across the line in “National City” – so that locality gets to claim credit for the ship’s head count.
WE’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BOAT: It is always Snark Week at The Dead Drop and we’re hoping reader tips will result with some good items in future columns. Send yours to us at: TheDeadDrop@theCipherBrief.com.
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