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00:00:28this is a bbc news special a malaysian passenger plane with around 300 people on board has crashed
00:00:48close to the ukraine border with russia there are unconfirmed reports that it was shot down
00:00:53a malaysian airliner had been flying normally without problems and had been due to enter
00:00:59an american journalist has been beheaded by isis terrorists a video showing the horrific killing
00:01:06was released on the internet a short while ago along with a message to the united states
00:01:11devastation in the rebel-held sukhari neighborhood of aleppo on wednesday
00:01:16activists blame a barrel bombing by government forces at least 100 people have been killed
00:01:23the flight would have been at cruising altitude which means it would have been about 32 000 feet
00:01:28and so for someone to mistake that for a hostile aircraft you know between russia and ukraine it
00:01:35would be very very difficult it is difficult to see how this could just be a mistake
00:01:40this is nonsense there are no russian armed forces anywhere in the east of ukraine
00:01:47a horrific scene in charlottesville virginia a white nationalist rally that descended into deadly
00:01:56violence and chaos the image is just coming in unfortunately the russian-backed separatists
00:02:01who control the area continue to block the investigation the separatists are removing
00:02:06evidence from the crash site all of which begs the question what exactly are they trying to hide
00:02:11we have to make sure that the truth is out
00:02:41before any official investigation into the tragedy of flight mh-17 is complete the website of one
00:02:58citizen journalist claims to have connected the dots bellingcat is run by elliot higgins a 36 year old
00:03:04laid-off office worker among bellingcat's favorite tools are youtube and google earth something higgins
00:03:10used to back his claim that russia faked satellite images to blame the ukrainian army for the mh-17 crash
00:03:17when i was younger i was super super shy
00:03:21when i went to university i just couldn't leave the house i was so shy
00:03:25terribly nerdy as they sound i was really into computers and gaming
00:03:30and i was very withdrawn as well so got into computers as the kind of people do
00:03:36i used to play these games a lot and i would like join a group and inevitably i would end up being
00:03:42the leader of the group because i would really get into stuff i've always been like that i've had
00:03:46this kind of obsessive tendency where if i do something i like it i'll really get into it
00:03:51growing up my interests were very counterculture so i was very interested in the way u.s foreign policy
00:04:00affected the world and of course we had things like the first iraq war the second iraq war and you
00:04:04know all the mess that america was making when social media became popular in 2007 2008 we had
00:04:11smartphones and those two technologies combined with apps that allowed you to take a photograph
00:04:16share it immediately with the entire world the fact you could do that was revolutionary
00:04:22this is something i've been working on them for a presentation it's about the white nationalists
00:04:37violence there was this image taken showing him attacking that guy so we wanted to know who this
00:04:48could be we looked for all the photographs and videos of these white nationalists and we found
00:04:53this guy now he has certain similarities for example he's got a very similar shirt on so we look for more
00:04:59images and photographs and we found this photograph which appeared to be the same person so we compare
00:05:04him and the one thing that stands out is this pattern of moles on his neck is exactly the same
00:05:10what we start doing is looking at these people who have stood around him because what happens is some
00:05:15of these people turn up in tweets by this account yes you're a racist where they actually name the
00:05:21individuals in question they show they have social media accounts so what we're able to do is go to
00:05:26those social media accounts and look through the people they follow and we come across this guy here
00:05:31and if we go to his page we can look at the photographs he's got and again you can start
00:05:37seeing matches so you can see the moles on his neck match the pattern of moles there
00:05:44so you know he appears to have been committing a crime so what we're trying to do is seeing if we
00:05:49can id the people behind these and this kind of work is becoming more and more interesting to law enforcement
00:05:55i originally was going to come here and talk to you about a revolution but with the discussion of
00:06:10the post-truth world it feels like a counter-revolution now and it's been a very peaceful and
00:06:15quiet revolution thanks to smartphones thanks to social media and thanks to the vast amount of
00:06:22information now available online to anyone and this revolution has allowed a new field to grow
00:06:29and i like to call this field online open source investigation and we can use it to influence the
00:06:35powerful we can use it to challenge the powerful and we can bring them to accountability as well
00:06:41now i started bellingcat because i wanted to teach people how to do this it used to be that the tools
00:06:49of media production were in the hands of the media and with the rise of the internet that is no longer true
00:06:59with blogging starting in 2000 and social media starting in 2004 and youtube which i think started
00:07:07in 2005 now the tools for media production have been given to the people formerly known as the audience
00:07:16historians will look back i think and recognize that this was the time almost 20 years after the
00:07:25internet emerged where the kind of realities of our networked environment became true and in human
00:07:33history when we've had these moments of significant change whether it was the printing press or radio
00:07:37or television we've had similar moments of oh my goodness what's it going to mean and we're there
00:07:42right now but we do have to recognize the seriousness of what this means because ultimately this
00:07:48technology is a reflection of humans so for the last five years we've been terrified about artificial
00:07:55intelligence and robots the horrible truth is the thing that might bring us down is technology that
00:08:00simply reflects our worst aspects back to each other
00:08:04i've just been looking at twitter and i noticed there was a new isis video and someone said there's
00:08:16james foley on it this is james right foley an american citizen of your country
00:08:23i just felt like i needed to do something so that's why i thought i'd see if i can actually
00:08:29figure out where this to take in place the first thing i noticed is it was in this kind of very dry
00:08:35and arid area but in the distance you could actually see a very green and fertile area and if you um
00:08:42you're familiar with the train around raca uh which is obviously the elaborate state of stronghold at that
00:08:47point you could see this valley with this river running through it and it was very green but the
00:08:51foothills around it were very dry and arid these are obviously very dusty heavy area but you can see
00:08:56in the distance all these individual trees so when you look at raca this is exactly what you're seeing
00:09:02you're seeing this green valley with these hills and i basically just went through and followed this
00:09:06line looking for similar terrain and you can see right here it's very very rough indeed so i thought
00:09:12that was a likely location and then i started looking at all these little background details like these
00:09:17trees on the road and comparing them to imagery that was visible from that line of sight once i had
00:09:24a possible location i published it just to kind of see if i could generate a discussion around where
00:09:28this could have happened and then several months later that's when i started bellingcat
00:09:34bellingcat doesn't have institutional support they don't have a big building at the hague or brussels
00:09:47where they do their work they actually publish very detailed analysis and many of them are volunteers
00:09:55living at home they don't have security and so what they do is really risk a great deal to find out the
00:10:03truth in very complex situations that include major global players
00:10:17rsets you can sell them and so what is it like as long they land of the
00:10:44What's this?
00:10:46What's this?
00:10:48What's this?
00:10:54What's this?
00:10:56What's this?
00:10:58A baby flying, or anything?
00:11:00Look.
00:11:02Yesterday, some people, with any rules of the war,
00:11:10they were able to do the terrorist act
00:11:13of a civil, a citizen,
00:11:17a race-based vehicle,
00:11:19which was flying from Amsterdam to Malaysia.
00:11:22I'm sorry for all of you for the autobuses.
00:11:28We will get out, or I will speak differently.
00:11:32How I got involved in Bellicat was that
00:11:42I had been following the Ukraine conflict
00:11:44pretty much since the beginning.
00:11:46And then, when MH17 was shut down,
00:11:49I got curious,
00:11:51because passenger planes fly very high.
00:11:53They fly, cruise at altitudes of 10 kilometers.
00:11:57I hadn't seen weapon systems that could reach that high.
00:12:00So previously, what I'd seen is these shoulder-launched missiles
00:12:04that can only reach a couple of kilometers,
00:12:06but nothing that could down on a passenger airliner.
00:12:09There were these pictures of all the parts of the aircraft
00:12:12that were starting to appear on social media.
00:12:14And what I wanted to understand was that
00:12:17could we actually see any damage on the aircraft parts itself
00:12:21that could indicate what brought it down.
00:12:25And that's how I got talking to then other people.
00:12:27There was Elliot, there was Eric,
00:12:29and then Timmy came along as well.
00:12:31And we sort of naturally started, I suppose,
00:12:34talking to each other.
00:12:35And then, at some point, Elliot reached out to all of us
00:12:38and said, hey, do you want to actually do something
00:12:40in a more coordinated fashion?
00:12:42And that's how we sort of ended up as the sort of core
00:12:44Bellingcat team.
00:12:54I was at work here in Charlotte at a bank,
00:12:57and my job was to monitor events that were going on
00:13:00and try to see if there's any danger or risk to the bankers,
00:13:03employees or travelers or whatever.
00:13:05I focused a lot on Ukraine and Russia at work
00:13:07because I studied Russian literature in graduate school.
00:13:09So I knew Russian, and I did a lot of monitoring
00:13:11of things to do with Russia and Ukraine.
00:13:13And I remember seeing some news that a plane shot down
00:13:16over Ukraine.
00:13:18At first, I thought, oh, it's no big deal.
00:13:20You know, another plane has been shot down.
00:13:23But soon, obviously, as everyone knows,
00:13:26we realized it wasn't a Ukrainian plane.
00:13:28And then I, like everybody else,
00:13:30was wondering what was going on.
00:13:32And I was looking at the online evidence
00:13:35around the shoot-down.
00:13:36There were a handful of photographs and videos
00:13:38that emerged on the day of the shoot-down,
00:13:41and then more that would come later on.
00:13:43And when you think about, like, the Lockerbie bombing
00:13:46or the U.S. shoot-down of the Iranian plane,
00:13:49you know, all these other disasters,
00:13:50there's really not that much to go on
00:13:52except for what you see on the news.
00:13:55But with MH17, it was so different
00:13:57because there was just this huge digital trail.
00:14:00I remember I was watching social media,
00:14:02and I was watching a few different feeds of news.
00:14:05And I remember I had Rocia Dean,
00:14:07which is, like, the main Russian state news channel,
00:14:09and Life News.
00:14:10And the Life News channel, I remember,
00:14:13the stream specifically was horrific.
00:14:15They were showing the bodies.
00:14:16It was awful.
00:14:17They showed people rifling through,
00:14:19and it was just a horrible, horrible scene.
00:14:21And, of course, you want to know, you know,
00:14:23who did this, why did it happen,
00:14:24and how can you bring some relief and, you know,
00:14:27justice to it?
00:14:28We know the trajectory.
00:14:30We know where it came from.
00:14:32We know the timing.
00:14:33And it was exactly at the time
00:14:35that this aircraft disappeared from the radar.
00:14:38We also know from voice identification
00:14:41that the separatists were bragging
00:14:43about shooting it down afterwards.
00:14:44Right.
00:14:45So there's a stacking up of evidence here.
00:14:48What I really wanted to first understand,
00:14:50what was it shut down with?
00:14:51Because that, then, would lead to the who did it.
00:14:53A couple of weeks before MH17 was shut down,
00:14:58there was a report on Voice of Russia
00:15:00that the rebels in East Ukraine
00:15:03had taken over this Buk missile base in Donetsk.
00:15:06And what I first thought that, okay,
00:15:09it's conceivable since Ukraine does also have Buk's,
00:15:13and the rebels, if they had access to the Buk's,
00:15:15they could have access to people as well
00:15:17who could operate those systems.
00:15:19But it was only then after a little while
00:15:24first learning that the same missile launcher
00:15:27had been actually seen in Russia.
00:15:30That's really when things started clicking together
00:15:32and sort of the Russian role started becoming apparent.
00:15:35I live on the edge of Berlin, in a house.
00:15:50I live here with my daughter.
00:15:53I'm alone.
00:15:55My daughter is schwerbehindered.
00:15:57And so it's for me not possible,
00:16:00a great job outside of home to make.
00:16:04And I work hauptsächlich here from home
00:16:07and have therefore also time for BerlinCAD.
00:16:13That problem was then,
00:16:15that we on the russian side
00:16:18a convoy with Buk-Raketenwerfern
00:16:21entdecked by several videos.
00:16:25We could have this convoy
00:16:27located in Kursk,
00:16:29from his standpoint,
00:16:31to the ukrainian border.
00:16:33The second one were photos,
00:16:37which we got from a Buk-Raketenwerfer
00:16:39in Donetsk.
00:16:41And the question was,
00:16:43is there a connection between this convoy
00:16:46and the Buk-Raketenwerfer
00:16:48in Donetsk,
00:16:49which was in Donetsk,
00:16:50which was found in Donetsk.
00:16:52Auffällig was immediately
00:16:53a Buk-Raketenwerfer
00:16:54in the Russian convoy.
00:16:56The way citizen journalism investigations
00:16:57are trusted is different than professional journalism.
00:16:59In professional journalism,
00:17:00you have the reputation of the
00:17:01The way citizen journalism investigations are trusted,
00:17:02is different than professional journalism.
00:17:03In professional journalism,
00:17:05you have the reputation of the BBC behind you, right?
00:17:21And the standards of an institution are the basis for trust.
00:17:25In citizen journalism,
00:17:27it works differently.
00:17:29Trust is generated not by the brand name
00:17:31or the glory of the institution.
00:17:35It's generated through transparency.
00:17:37institution are the basis for trust. In citizen journalism, it works differently.
00:17:46Trust is generated not by the brand name or the glory of the institution. It's generated
00:17:54through transparency. And so in citizen journalism investigations, what the journalist says is not,
00:18:04trust me, I'm with the BBC. It's, don't believe me? Here's the evidence.
00:18:17Syria's deadly civil war is now even more dangerous, with both the US and Russia launching
00:18:24airstrikes, but supporting different sides. The core of what I have been doing with
00:18:31Billingkat, it's human rights activism. With some of my colleagues, we started a Facebook
00:18:37group called the Syria Uprising Information Center. It's in the beginning, 2011, we were just
00:18:42locating where the peaceful protests were coming from. But that turned into pinpointing human
00:18:49rights violations, and that work led eventually working on doing open source analysis with Billingkat.
00:18:55So if we go from the beginning, so you see it's like the first moment of the attack. You see
00:19:07four rockets going into the markets. And we are trying to see if it's a fake video,
00:19:14maybe from a different country, maybe in Syria, but in a different time. And we have seen this has
00:19:20happened a lot. If you remember the director who filmed a boy that has been killed,
00:19:32it was just a film that they were doing in a different country even. But it got a lot of
00:19:38traction when people used it as, look at what's happening in Syria, right? But actually it wasn't
00:19:44happening in Syria. So we really need to make sure that whatever we're looking at, it's clearly
00:19:52verified. It's not just propaganda. As human beings, we are very susceptible to information
00:19:59that reinforces our worldviews. We like to think that people have a rational relationship to
00:20:04information. We do not. We have an emotional relationship to information. So when we see over
00:20:09lies or falsehoods or manipulated video, it's very easy as academics or researchers or journalists to
00:20:15say, why is this working? How can we see foreign governments put out false information and get away
00:20:21with it? Because they are successful, because humans don't want to do the necessary checks.
00:20:28Because if you receive information that reinforces your worldview, you've got no interest to check it.
00:20:39So you can see there's four bombs falling from the sky and then impacting three of them in pretty much
00:21:06the same place. And the fourth one hits a little bit further out. So there we see the bigger impacts
00:21:13here, and then there's one further down here. It's hard to say what exactly it is, but I wouldn't
00:21:19exclude either the Syrians or the Russians from this one. But in addition to this, it would be really good
00:21:26to see the actual remnants of the bombs themselves, because that then gives you more data about what
00:21:32exactly the bombs were. And then that can tell you who possibly did the strike.
00:21:36Venni Pekker was part of the Finnish military. And because they are more focused towards Russia
00:21:43than other nations are, he has a better understanding of military doctrine, I suppose you could say.
00:21:47He has a good analytical eye. He picks up the ideas around open source investigation and
00:21:51verification and geolocation very, very quickly. He had this persistence and obsessiveness that's
00:21:56kind of needed in an investigator, and the stability that you also need.
00:22:14The work that Hadid and Bellingcat have been doing is critical. They're grabbing, obviously,
00:22:19large quantities of information, much of which can disappear quite quickly from the internet,
00:22:24and preserving it so that we have it for future accountability mechanisms.
00:22:28One of the things that Hadid and the Syrian Archive have been doing, and we've been really
00:22:31trying to support them in that process, is figuring out how do you code and label and tag all of these
00:22:37videos so that if, for example, a legal investigator later says, we want to investigate this particular
00:22:43crime on a particular date in a particular place, that they can pull up that information quickly.
00:22:48They can explain how they got it so that it's transparent for a court of law,
00:22:52and can then actually send it on to the investigators in a way that makes sense.
00:22:59Hadid and I, we've been working a lot together, developing these ideas about how
00:23:04open source information can be archived and actually be used and stored in a useful way.
00:23:09But Hadid, you know, he's lived this. This is his home. These are his friends and family.
00:23:13He's part of that community of Syrians who are living abroad, working on this.
00:23:17So he really cares about these issues, and he cares about doing it right, especially when it comes to
00:23:22the work we're doing on justice and accountability.
00:23:24Timmy is helping to understand better what happened in the impact sites.
00:23:33Timmy is helping to understand better what happened in the impact sites.
00:23:47So what I'm asking Timmy is if he can create a 3D structure of this location,
00:23:55so then we can go in detail and see what happened in each building.
00:23:58Timmy is helping to understand a 3D model.
00:24:07This is the software, that is considered a 3D model.
00:24:10And this model can be used to the model for a virtual reality,
00:24:16in the virtual reality to be able to see this place in 3D.
00:24:31I was born here in Ost-Berlin and for me it was normal.
00:24:37What was my work in the DDR was.
00:24:40In the last 10 years, before the Mauer fell,
00:24:53I was in the Ost-Berlin and worked in a office.
00:24:57There I made analyses.
00:25:01I measured information and carried out.
00:25:05For me, it was very important to me,
00:25:08that I could never talk about my work.
00:25:14At the time of the Geheimdienst,
00:25:16he wanted to know how the people are at the start.
00:25:20He wanted to know the attitude of the people.
00:25:23That was the main task.
00:25:25What we did at Bellingcat do,
00:25:26has nothing to do with that.
00:25:28We wanted to know what events have been found.
00:25:32What happens in Krisengebieten,
00:25:34where there is no reporter.
00:25:36And we want to do it publicly,
00:25:38and not secretly.
00:25:41That's the big difference.
00:25:42That's the big difference.
00:25:50I got an update from Timmy and Hardy about the location of the bombing.
00:25:58The big challenge for journalists is just,
00:26:00if you think about the work that Bellingcat is doing,
00:26:02the amount of time that it takes to go through this.
00:26:05So we have people on their free time in the evenings,
00:26:07you know,
00:26:08they're spending hours and hours going through this.
00:26:11And I see the pressure with many traditional journalist outfits,
00:26:14is that they're getting so tight on resources and time these days,
00:26:19that it's hard for them to actually spend enough time to sort of go through all of this,
00:26:23and analyze it in the way that some of the volunteer groups can.
00:26:27In the case of Syria itself,
00:26:30there is more hours of the conflict online,
00:26:33rather than the hours of the conflict itself.
00:26:35It's the most documented conflict in history.
00:26:38And I don't see big news agencies doing any work like this.
00:26:44This is the market one month before the attack.
00:26:49There are more than 60 people who were killed.
00:26:53It's just a market.
00:26:55I mean, there is no military air base.
00:26:58It's not near the front line.
00:27:00It was attacked by an airstrike.
00:27:02Why would you attack civilians?
00:27:04I mean, what is the reason?
00:27:13The delegation stating unfounded allegations against my country are depending on amateur bloggers and videos.
00:27:24And among one of them is a very famous British citizen called Elliot Higgins,
00:27:29whose online inputs about the situation in Syria are intensively yet mistakenly adopted by many media outlets as well as governments.
00:27:38According to Wikipedia, and I quote,
00:27:41Elliot Higgins, in 2012, when he began blogging the Syrian situation,
00:27:47was an unemployed finance and admin worker who spent his days taking care of his child at home.
00:27:54Higgins' analysis of Syrian weapons began as a hobby, out of his home in his spare time.
00:28:01Higgins has no background or training in weapons and is entirely self-taught,
00:28:05and he said,
00:28:08Before the Arab Spring, I knew no more about weapons than the average Xbox owner.
00:28:13I had no knowledge beyond what I had learned from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rambo.
00:28:18Never been to Syria, doesn't speak a word of Arabic,
00:28:23and he conducts his profound research from the comfort of his armchair in his home.
00:28:29Even at school I was really crushingly shy, so how do I get over that?
00:28:47It's being passionate about something and then doing stuff that is outside your comfort zone.
00:28:51And partly because my wife telling me to stop being shy about stuff all the time, and that helps.
00:28:55She came to England to study English and be an au pair and then we met and then we just started dating.
00:29:02And also going to Turkey to propose to someone was quite a, for me, like an amazingly bizarrely brave insane thing to do.
00:29:10So that's when I kind of started to change and then this came along and then I had to start doing stuff that really was outside my comfort zone.
00:29:17When I first started coming up with the idea for the website at the start of 2014, I was trying to think of a clever name.
00:29:27And I basically failed, just like, I would say, oh, I'll call it the open source or investigation online.
00:29:34Crap names. And they're all taking anyway.
00:29:37So in a way, thank God they were, because I probably would have picked one.
00:29:39So I was stuck and I contacted my friend. He's a playwright, so I thought, he knows words, so I'll ask him.
00:29:46And quite quickly he said, what about belling the cat?
00:29:49A mouse town was recently visited by a cat. Since then, all of the mice haven't had any peace.
00:29:57So the mice decided to be rid of this cat.
00:29:59No cats. No cats. No cats. No cats. No cats.
00:30:04I have an idea. How about putting a bell around the cat's neck?
00:30:08How about you bell the cat, as you seem to be the one with the great idea?
00:30:13Uh, me? Oh, no, no, no, I can't.
00:30:17Even the greatest ideas are nothing when they can't be done.
00:30:22So what we're doing at Bellingcat is we're teaching people how to bell the cat.
00:30:26That's all you're going to get. It's your favourite, isn't it, Ella?
00:30:33Because shoe nuts.
00:30:35Phase zero, in a way, was how the internet used to be before social media and smartphones.
00:30:39To share a photograph of someone, you had to upload it onto a site and then put the link in a forum.
00:30:43And if someone read that forum, they would see the photograph.
00:30:46And that's kind of when I started getting involved when I was doing my blogging.
00:30:49And that was the period up until 2014 where NGOs and journalists becoming interested, you know, in part because of what I was doing.
00:30:59And now what's happening is policymakers are getting a lot more interested in this government's intelligence, military,
00:31:04because we're going out there in this period and challenging the Russian government directly with evidence that they can't refute.
00:31:12And we're making them look bad, we're challenging the narrative they're trying to push.
00:31:15And that moved towards the fourth period, which we're in 2017, where we're now thinking about this for justice and accountability.
00:31:23So, you know, phase five is when we'll actually be, you know, in court with this kind of thing.
00:31:44So this is a photograph of the book that shot down in Meg 17.
00:31:48This is taking about four hours before the shoot down.
00:31:50And we look at this, we can see a few things that are pretty obvious, like we have the book right here,
00:31:56which is in the back of a white Volvo with a red low loader trailer behind it.
00:32:03And also we have here the Jeep.
00:32:08If we look at other videos of this convoy, we can find the same vehicles in each one.
00:32:13So, for example, right here, this is the white Volvo carrying the book.
00:32:17And here you see the same Jeep that we saw in the photograph, along with a video taken two days prior accompanying a number of Russian and separatist tanks through eastern Ukraine to Donetsk.
00:32:30This video was taken on the day of the MH17 shoot down five hours before the shoot down.
00:32:36And you can see that one of the most important details is on this book, we can see one, two, three, four missiles on the book that shut down MH17 five hours before the shoot down.
00:32:47If we look at a video filmed the next morning around five or six in the morning in Luhansk, this missile is missing.
00:32:54There's only three missiles.
00:32:56And we know what happened to that missile.
00:32:59And there are many ways to know exactly when and where this video was taken.
00:33:04One reason or one way we know is at the end of this video, we see fuel prices.
00:33:14And if we look at historical data of what the fuel prices were on the day of the MH17 shoot down and compare, they were the exact same prices that we see right here.
00:33:22So we know exactly when the video was taken.
00:33:25And also there's even a satellite image showing the same vehicle in Mikhevka.
00:33:30And the satellite image is on Google Earth.
00:33:32Anyone can find it.
00:33:33And it was taken at 11 08 AM on the day of the shoot down.
00:33:37So with Google Earth, if we just go to Mikhevka.
00:33:40So this is the gas station right here where the bulk passed by.
00:33:46If we go further on, we can go and view like a time machine.
00:33:50And we can go back to the day of the MH17 shoot down on Google Earth and look at the satellite image that was taken on that day.
00:34:00July 17th, 2014.
00:34:06We can go here and we can see all this is the same.
00:34:09These are the vehicles here.
00:34:12But if you zoom in here very closely, it's hard to see because the resolution is very good.
00:34:19But this video was taken just about 45 seconds before this satellite image was taken.
00:34:26It's a cosmic luck coincidence that this happened.
00:34:29But you see right here, you see the white cabin of the Volvo truck carrying the bulk.
00:34:35This is the bulk right here.
00:34:36And one of the ways we know is the shadow being casted by the bulk is quite large and it matches exactly what a bulk should look like.
00:34:43And if we go through, we can match every single element in here.
00:34:47Even back at the gas station, the arrangement of the cars at the gas station.
00:34:55See, you see here this white car with the door open.
00:35:00If you go back here, you can see it here as well.
00:35:03So this is the exact same scene that was filmed in this video just 45 seconds later.
00:35:10A website calling itself a resource for citizen investigative journalists is to publish its own findings today.
00:35:17Anastasia Cherkina looks at what this information is based on.
00:35:20What does it take to shape public opinion and be a newsmaker over the conflict in Ukraine, finding answers and solutions which have eluded even the brightest political minds?
00:35:30Could a cosy couch and a laptop with internet access to endless social media posts be enough to paint the full picture?
00:35:37RT went to find the man behind Bellingcat for his side of the story.
00:35:41When Russia Today reporter basically tried to hunt me down in my hometown, even though he knew I wasn't interested in being interviewed with him and I wasn't going to meet him.
00:35:50And they turned that into a whole thing.
00:35:52I had a week where I had like five different interviews, like one TV crew coming to my house every day.
00:35:56It was like I won the lottery. It must have been for the neighbours and then I didn't leave so they must have thought I murdered someone.
00:36:01So they came every day and one of them was CNN and CNN did a whole piece of money. It was a big deal.
00:36:06But they described me as a stay at home Mr. Mom.
00:36:14Sometimes we use the phrase accidental journalists for somebody who happens to be there when the plane goes down and takes the photograph.
00:36:22But this is different because it's not accidental, it's intentional.
00:36:26And they are an increasingly important category of the public.
00:36:30And people in professions that touch on this work should just get used to their existence.
00:36:37So remember I put my laptop here.
00:36:43I will show you how my house looks like the rest of my home today with me today.
00:36:50What is your cell phone?
00:36:55The last year, I was almost every week, in a different country in Bellingcat.
00:37:02The digital walls of Bellingcat can be everywhere, if it's on a hotel complex in Amman or in the Rimbu in Kenya or on a big river in Kirgizië, that's pretty cool.
00:37:25Many people in Bellingcat have a family or women and children, and it's harder to make such long trips, especially to Iraq or Jordan, Libanon or Kirgizi or Colombia.
00:37:55If we ever get stuck, he'll find it in five minutes, and it's like amazing how he does it.
00:38:01There is an enormous information revolution, of course.
00:38:05And the information war and the access to information brought a lot of change.
00:38:11For example, the gas war in Mezich-Center as an example.
00:38:16The Israeli army, that comes with very nice infographics, so many things have been bombarded and this and that.
00:38:22And on the other hand, there are many people in the Gaza-stroke who, with their mobile phone and internet connection,
00:38:30as it were, have all their own little CNNs in hand.
00:38:34They tell us what's happening, that there are bombarded, that there are people around.
00:38:38That caused a lot. It's a kind of monopoly on information.
00:38:45So that's why I think that the research method that we use,
00:38:49to verify all that kind of material and analyze it,
00:38:52and then try to put them together as a puzzle piece,
00:38:55that will become more important for the day.
00:38:57Because the more people do that, the more facts we can unravel.
00:39:01I am now in a very big resort in the Dead Sea, in Jordan.
00:39:15And well, because here is the 10th anniversary conference of Arish.
00:39:20That is a very big network of research journalists in the whole Arabian-speaking world.
00:39:25And I am invited to give a workshop here.
00:39:29And a presentation about the work that we do.
00:39:32So it's very cool, because there are many people from the Middle East.
00:39:41From Yemen to Libya, from Egypt to Iraq.
00:39:46My name is Christian Tribut, from Holland.
00:39:51I will present in English because I just know some words.
00:40:04But welcome everyone here in this morning.
00:40:07And I'd like to talk about a very new way of investigating.
00:40:12And this is basically investigating using only digital, openly available information.
00:40:19By looking at the visual clues in the photo.
00:40:22And this has become known as the Bellingcat Method.
00:40:25Here we have the Russian Ministry of Defense,
00:40:27their official Twitter account, as you can see, it's verified.
00:40:30And they say what they show, irrefutable evidence that the US are actually covering ISIS combat units.
00:40:38That they are supporting ISIS.
00:40:39But let's see where it comes from.
00:40:42This is a screenshot from a YouTube video, which is a game simulator.
00:40:47It's a gunship simulator.
00:40:49So the Russian Ministry of Defense took a picture, a screenshot from a video game.
00:40:54And they presented it as evidence.
00:40:57Which is fascinating, because why would they present a video game still as evidence?
00:41:04Every country has a foreign policy.
00:41:06Every country has reasons to hope or believe that certain outcomes will happen in different countries.
00:41:13And if you think globally, some of these are subtle, some of them are quite clear.
00:41:17For Russia, it's in Russia's interest to destabilise Western Europe.
00:41:21It's in Russia's interest for NATO to no longer exist.
00:41:25There are many reasons why they would enjoy the European Union to not exist in the way that it does.
00:41:30It's on Russia's border.
00:41:31So if you want to make these countries even more unstable,
00:41:35you're flooding these communities with disinformation.
00:41:43In October 2016, 11am, in the morning.
00:41:57The first tweet that I can see regarding an autobom in Iraq.
00:42:03That's a lot. They link to Facebook.
00:42:07You can see more news.
00:42:11People are going to talk about this. There's a car bomb with 13 dead people.
00:42:16We'll see that Reuters...
00:42:19...picked this.
00:42:35If it's on the wire, Reuters, Associated Press...
00:42:39...we're going to take the international media.
00:42:42Here we have a report from the New York Times.
00:42:44The latest car bomb kills 10 in Baghdad neighborhood.
00:42:47This is a solid story.
00:42:49We have health sources, medical sources...
00:42:52...IS has claimed it.
00:42:54We have international journalists who went to the location...
00:42:58...that there was a car bomb.
00:43:00We'll see here a load pipe of the car.
00:43:03People are looking at it.
00:43:05This lets us very well see...
00:43:08...how important fact checks are, but also how difficult it is.
00:43:11A day later...
00:43:13...see you suddenly this...
00:43:14...on the Internet.
00:43:24This car is blown away.
00:43:25There's no one in the street.
00:43:27...I'll have a look at it.
00:43:29There's no one in the street.
00:43:30There's no one in the street.
00:43:31There's no one in the street.
00:43:32There's no one out there.
00:43:34People are taken away from the place where the bomb hit the bomb.
00:43:54And if they brought them to a hospital, I know that.
00:43:58It's bizarre.
00:44:00I'm not working with them.
00:44:03I'm going to do that with every bomb.
00:44:06So I think it's something within the journalism...
00:44:10...where there's no time for it, or maybe there's no time for it.
00:44:14I understand it immediately on the wire.
00:44:18This is reported in Baghdad, so you want to see what happened in the news.
00:44:24But it's the same time to find something else.
00:44:28What is this?
00:44:33I've been a journalist for 50 years, and I have never known...
00:44:36...the system of journalism being such a perilous state.
00:44:40There's hardly any money spent on training journalists.
00:44:43There aren't many journalists with decent jobs these days.
00:44:46Most of them are working freelance.
00:44:48It's very difficult to earn a living.
00:44:50Big media organisations don't spend money on investigative journalism.
00:44:54They're not sort of properly representing the communities they serve.
00:44:58So the contribution to democracy of good, reliable, ethical journalism is diminishing by the day.
00:45:04Every newspaper that closes, every radio station that goes down, every newsroom in a TV that is further constrained...
00:45:10...is making journalism weaker.
00:45:12There are a very small number of journalists globally that can do the kind of forensic verification work on videos and images...
00:45:22...which is why it's very effective to put out something that's false...
00:45:27...and it often gets used by mainstream newsrooms that don't know how to do these checks themselves.
00:45:33And so we need independent professional experts, like Bellingcat, who can help audiences navigate this information space.
00:45:42This is the James Foley execution video being fate.
00:45:50They've tried quite hard to recreate it.
00:45:52One thing they've done is they've made sure they've got wind blowing in.
00:45:55Do you see how his clothes are moving?
00:45:57So they've tried quite hard to make it look really like the actual execution video.
00:46:02They want you to not trust yourself.
00:46:05Now, in an era of social media, you want to get clicks.
00:46:08So having a headline that says, you're not going to believe that this beheading isn't true, will get you many more clicks.
00:46:14Anybody who was making this is thinking, how can I get many people to look at a video that might undermine trust in anything they see?
00:46:21But we do have to acknowledge that many Western countries have used similar forms of information warfare in other countries around the world.
00:46:28So what we're seeing right now in this focus on Russia, we do have to understand it gets used by many other countries.
00:46:35Anybody who is trying to find out what actually happened and bring it to the attention of the world is doing an important job, whether it's their profession or their passion.
00:46:52And we should appreciate them for what they're doing.
00:46:57We should also ask questions about what they're doing so we know whether to trust it.
00:47:02And that's why transparency is the method of trust for this kind of work.
00:47:07At the same time that they're doing their job, bad actors are doing their job to try and undermine trust in any kind of journalism and any kind of verification.
00:47:20There are people in the world who want all forms of verification to just go away so they don't have to deal with them.
00:47:26They want to be able to say anything and have it believed.
00:47:30This sleazy guy right over here from ABC, he's a sleaze in my book.
00:47:35The fake media tried to stop us from going to the White House, but I'm president and they're not.
00:47:43Right now they're winning.
00:47:46So we need people fighting against that.
00:47:50Bill & Cat неоднократно обвиняли Россию в бомбардировке мирного населения Сирии, несмотря на официальное опровержение нашего министерства обороны.
00:47:58Таким образом, Higgins, диванный генерал и кухонный эксперт по всем вопросам, бывший геймер, любитель компьютерных игр, на основании картинок Google-планета из космоса дает советы космического масштаба.
00:48:13We've been targeted by cyberattacks from Russia.
00:48:16We've been targeted by various criticism in the media.
00:48:21People have been sent to kind of track me down in Leicester by Russia today.
00:48:24We had the Russian foreign ministry and the Russian M.O.D. have criticized our working attackers.
00:48:28So there are, you know, possible dangers in doing this kind of work.
00:48:32Im Jahr 2015 gab es eine E-Mail, eine anonyme E-Mail, an, ich sag mal, fast alle meine Geschäftspartner, mit denen ich zu tun habe.
00:48:43Und in dieser anonymen E-Mail wurden mir unterstellt, ich würde lügen, betrügen, finanziell am Boden sein und viele andere Dinge, also die einfach nicht wahr sind.
00:48:56Wenn man mit sowas konfrontiert wird, ich war erschrocken darüber.
00:49:01Auf der anderen Seite ist es auch so, ich fürchte nicht um meine Gesundheit.
00:49:06Ich glaube nicht, dass man so weit gehen würde, es würde auch keinen Sinn machen.
00:49:10Bellingcat ist mittlerweile so groß, ob ich dabei bin oder nicht, spielt keine Rolle.
00:49:26So, das ist die BUC-M1, die Missile Launcher, die ich habe, von 1998 bis 1999.
00:49:33Wir haben eigentlich den BUC-System dort.
00:49:36So, das ist die BUC-M1, die Missile Launcher-Systeme.
00:49:42Und das ist die, die wir jetzt in Ukraine sehen, als MH17 wurde geöffnet.
00:49:48Hier haben wir die Missile.
00:49:50Das ist wo die Warhead wäre.
00:49:52So, das ist eigentlich die Part, die explodiert.
00:49:55Das hat layers of metal, Fragments, auf es.
00:49:59So, das sind verschiedene Metallfragments,
00:50:00das sind dann die Destructive Component,
00:50:03das dann eigentlich bringt die Aircraft.
00:50:05Und so, dann die andere Parts hier.
00:50:07So, da ist die Guidance Part, da,
00:50:09das eigentlich die Missile zu der Target.
00:50:11Es kann manöver, so es kann eigentlich,
00:50:13eigentlich move in der Air, wenn die Target ist.
00:50:15Wenn die Radar ist illuminating die Target,
00:50:17dann das Seeker-Head-Head-Head-Head-Head-Head-Head-Head-Head-Head-Head-Head.
00:50:21Das ist das erste Mal, ich bin in der Buche,
00:50:30so das ist spannend.
00:50:32So, das ist die Frage, die ich empfinde,
00:50:34die Angelegenheit zu fangen.
00:50:36So, welcher die ich empfinde,
00:50:37die Angelegenheit zu fangen?
00:50:42Jetzt, in der Situation,
00:50:44dass die Crew nicht die Angelegenheit nicht die Angelegenheit
00:50:45nicht die Angelegenheit nicht die Angelegenheit,
00:50:46denn die Angelegenheit,
00:50:47die Crew über die Angelegenheit über die Angelegenheit
00:50:48über die Angelegenheit in Ukraine
00:50:50die vorhin Nacht.
00:50:51So, die haben sie vieles睡st,
00:50:53sie waren zu dem Ort,
00:50:54sie waren, zu dem Ort,
00:50:56und was eigentlich ihre Mentalität?
00:50:58Where they're just focused on that, they get a call and then they shoot down the first thing that they pick up on the radar.
00:51:10Hard to say, hard to get inside the people's heads.
00:51:19We mapped out and found all the different sightings of this convoy and it clear that it left from Kursk to the border.
00:51:25And in Kursk, there's only one anti-aircraft brigade, which is the 53rd anti-aircraft brigade, which made it the most logical answer for which brigade did this belong to.
00:51:36So then we went through social media profiles for people who serve in this military unit in Kursk.
00:51:42Finding profiles of soldiers is super easy.
00:51:45You just go to a social media site like Kontaktya, which is the Russian Facebook, and there's this filter you can say only people who list their military service as this military unit.
00:51:54And you just type in the military unit number for the 53rd Brigade and say they started service in 2013 or 2014.
00:52:01And then you have a list of maybe 20, 30, 50 soldiers.
00:52:04And there you go.
00:52:05And of those profiles that you go through, a lot of them posted photographs and videos of being in the convoy that went from Kursk to the Ukrainian border.
00:52:14And in some of them, you can actually see the book that shut down number 17 in the background.
00:52:19They even posted, like, you know, they stand up next to road signs with the name of the city that they were in, right?
00:52:24So you can track them pretty easily because, you know, they're 19, 20, 21-year-old kids who are kind of off on a trip, right, to the border.
00:52:31One of the sources of information is not just from the soldiers themselves, but from the people close to them who receive information from the soldiers.
00:52:40And maybe this information is too sensitive, they feel like, to post on their private pages.
00:52:44But within these kind of trusted communities among other wives, mothers, and girlfriends of soldiers, they'll share this information because they feel like they're maybe the world isn't watching.
00:52:53There's lots and lots and lots of these groups. It's not just like there's one site. But here's one of them. It's called Mama Soldata, which is a soldier's mother.
00:53:00And one of these posts that one of the mothers of one of the soldiers posted was on June 23rd, 2014, which was the day that the convoy left from Kursk on its way to the Ukrainian border.
00:53:11And she wrote,
00:53:13So excuse my awful accent, but that means today I accidentally found out, my son didn't tell me that our boys weren't sent to the fields, but instead to the Rostov Oblast, which is on the border, to the border of Ukraine.
00:53:38And so here she said, even though the people, the sons may not be saying, we're going to the Ukrainian border on their contact pages.
00:53:47Well, the mothers and wives and girlfriends, they knew, and they were talking much more openly about this stuff.
00:53:52Because it concerned them, obviously, very personally, and they didn't have the same stringent requirements of, you know, or expected requirements of secrecy like you had in the military.
00:54:01And there weren't going to be any consequences about them for leaking information or whatever.
00:54:05Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this press conference of the joint investigation team. In short, the GIT. The GIT performs criminal investigation into the downing of flight MH17 on 17th of July 2014.
00:54:26In the GIT, Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine work closely together.
00:54:33Today, we will make a number of specific requests and will give you partial insight into the progress of the investigation.
00:54:40We urgently appeal to everyone, anywhere in the world, who can give the GIT more information about the following.
00:54:49So this is a call between two guys. They're obviously speaking Russian, and one of them is referred to as Nikolai Fedorovich.
00:55:07This other guy with a higher voice, and we don't know exactly what his role is with MH17, but obviously it's something important if the GIT, the Dutch investigation team, put out a call for witnesses about who these guys were.
00:55:20So there's a few different ways we can approach it. We can work through Russian partners.
00:55:24So we were planning to work with some Russian partners to do this, because there's a lot of stuff that we can do through totally digital open source research,
00:55:30but a lot of avenues are opened up when we work with Russian partners who have access to more information.
00:55:36We're working with a Russian journalist who was from a publication called The Insider.
00:55:40He, over a period of weeks, was phoning up the person in question and basically saying that he would like to do an interview for a Russian Ministry of Defense newspaper.
00:55:50This took him a long time to set this interview up, and then the guy gave about 20 minutes of interviews in total.
00:55:55So we got a whole, a really lengthy section of him talking, and so that's what we used for analysis.
00:56:12We have this new theory about the identity of this one Russian commander who's codenamed Delphin.
00:56:17And right now there's audio analysis happening of his voice to try and imagine now through the audio intercepts that JIT released.
00:56:26Who are you working with now?
00:56:27Journalist.
00:56:28Journalist.
00:56:29Journalist.
00:56:30Journalist?
00:56:31What organization?
00:56:32Well, at this point, we're doing the material for the Star Channel.
00:56:36I don't understand.
00:56:37For the Star Channel.
00:56:39The Star Channel.
00:56:40The Star Channel.
00:56:41The Star Channel.
00:56:42The Audio Lab in Vilnius is one we chose because it's got a very good reputation internationally, plus a familiarity with the language Russian.
00:56:49I'm in Moscow, in Moscow.
00:56:51In Moscow, it's clear.
00:56:53So.
00:56:54It's clear.
00:56:55Do you have service instructions?
00:56:58Well, of course, yes.
00:57:00There are voices, there, and speaking of the Latinx, there's a whole lot of all.
00:57:05All the letters and the words.
00:57:08Ah, yeah.
00:57:09I think it's a good distance.
00:57:11Right.
00:57:12You have to say, with his운드's home, it's a big choice, but it's a door.
00:57:15Two other.
00:57:16Well, distance.
00:57:21Hello.
00:57:22This is Elliot Higgins.
00:57:24Hello.
00:57:25This is Whitman Blath speaking from Vilnius.
00:57:28Oh, hi. How are you doing? I'm good, thanks.
00:57:31So, we finished our examination and our experts came to conclusion that...
00:57:39In one conversation, one speaker highly probably matches.
00:57:44OK.
00:57:45OK, so it's highly probable that one of them matches. And this is the one that's Delphin?
00:57:50Probably, yes. Probably, yes.
00:57:52How sure are you that you've discovered the identity of Delphin?
00:57:56We're very certain at this point. We've done open source analysis that pointed us to an individual.
00:58:01We managed to acquire a recording of that individual speaking.
00:58:04And we sent that to two separate forensic analysis laboratories who came back and told us it was a match.
00:58:11But this proves that Russia was involved. Involved how?
00:58:15Well, we can certainly say that Russia sent the missile launcher that shot down MH17.
00:58:20And this is, you know, part of a wider effort by Russia to send military equipment into Ukraine during 2014 to support separatist forces.
00:58:27Something Vladimir Putin has denied repeatedly.
00:58:30Are you saying this was not a Russian missile? This was not a Russian army missile?
00:58:36No, of course. Of course, no.
00:58:39It's in people's interest to argue that Bellingcat are not trustworthy.
00:58:44So, we have seen, because of the work that they've done, they have been undermined by the Russian government, but also by others.
00:58:51And so, no surprises there. If you're trying to discredit somebody who is pushing out information that you don't want to be pushed out,
00:58:59it's in your interest to undermine that as a source.
00:59:02I'm really interested in how you apply open source investigation to justice and accountability, and that's a big, complex topic.
00:59:30We're looking at probably one of the biggest and most significant changes around justice and accountability that may have ever occurred.
00:59:37Because you're talking now about a massive amount of evidence that's available online, and lots of questions about how they use it.
00:59:44So, in the summer of 2017, the International Criminal Court published their first arrest warrant that was based off videos uploaded to Facebook showing executions.
00:59:54We're looking at a large research on Mahmoud Lerfali, a Libyan commander.
01:00:18We're looking at a large research on Mahmoud Lerfali, a Libyan commander.
01:00:24So, he's being punished by the ICC that he would have been punished in and around the city of Benghazi in Libya.
01:00:33Such favors are mostly about jihadist groups too.
01:00:46And he fights against that .
01:00:47And he fights against them.
01:00:49And the point is that he wrote the book as a person...
01:00:53...who killed many jihadists.
01:00:56And that's why he is now sought...
01:01:00...by the International Criminal Court in Den Haag.
01:01:04And specifically about seven incidents...
01:01:07...where he is in charge...
01:01:10...or executes people...
01:01:12... without any process going forward.
01:01:15And on August 15, 2017...
01:01:19...hef the International Criminal Court in Den Haag...
01:01:23...an arrestation bevel for him.
01:01:26So one of the reasons why the Arfali case is so important...
01:01:29...historically in getting legal accountability for these crimes...
01:01:32...is that it was one of the first ever arrest warrants...
01:01:34...issued by the International Criminal Court...
01:01:36...to be based almost solely on information...
01:01:39...that was gleaned from social media.
01:01:41They of course had other resources...
01:01:43...that they were relying upon.
01:01:45But when you actually read the arrest warrant...
01:01:46...you see that much of it's based on information...
01:01:48...from Facebook and Twitter.
01:01:49So this is sort of a monumental point in time...
01:01:52...where we're realizing that we really need to be...
01:01:54...grabbing information from those platforms...
01:01:56...and preserving it.
01:01:57Because that information is providing the basis...
01:02:00...for legal cases in a way that it just...
01:02:02...quite frankly never has before.
01:02:04So what is happening with Warfali right now?
01:02:19He doesn't really seem to care about the ICC warrant.
01:02:22I'm just wondering, I mean, after the arrest of warrants...
01:02:25...if it doesn't have any kind of direct impact on him...
01:02:30...then many others will be doing...
01:02:32...the same type of random executions.
01:02:35I think this is one of the messages...
01:02:38...that they wanted to send also to people like Warfali.
01:02:41He is now still walking around.
01:02:43And maybe he will be.
01:02:45All the time.
01:02:47This still does give a message, I think, showing...
01:02:50...okay, this footage can be used in a legal case.
01:02:58It's bizarre, actually.
01:02:59Look, the arrest of the arrest...
01:03:01...of the International Stafford...
01:03:03...was issued in August 2017.
01:03:06Then there was a message...
01:03:08...of the Libyan National Army.
01:03:11We will ensure that he comes in custody...
01:03:15...and we will see what is happening, etc.
01:03:18That happened.
01:03:19And more importantly, there were reports...
01:03:21...that he would be involved in incidents...
01:03:23...and that activists had been reported.
01:03:25And that went through week to week...
01:03:27...or month to month.
01:03:28And it was hard to verify.
01:03:30There were a lot of non-verified reports.
01:03:32Until then...
01:03:34...he executed 10 men on video...
01:03:37...where he is standing in front of his left hand...
01:03:40...he holds a rifle.
01:03:41And he is shooting one by one...
01:03:43...the people dead.
01:03:45We're trying to see that.
01:03:46We're trying to see...
01:03:47...the first person...
01:03:49...where we and I have done research...
01:03:51...to do research...
01:03:52...who might be doing it.
01:03:56We thought it was an interesting case...
01:04:01...because he actually handed himself...
01:04:03...into the Libyan authorities.
01:04:05There was then a massive protest by supporters...
01:04:07...and he was released.
01:04:09And they posted a video of him on Instagram...
01:04:11...having a special release cake.
01:04:14So that was a rather bizarre thing to see.
01:04:17But he's currently still wanted by the ICC...
01:04:20...but he's currently not in jail anywhere.
01:04:25I think there's a good chance...
01:04:26...Werfali could be brought to justice.
01:04:27I think the video information...
01:04:29...that we have against him is so damning...
01:04:31...and it so clearly ties him...
01:04:33...to the potential crimes...
01:04:34...that were alleged to have been committed...
01:04:36...that, you know, it's really hard...
01:04:37...to turn away from that video...
01:04:38...and say, oh no, he doesn't have any ties...
01:04:40...to what's taken place.
01:04:42So the fact that these videos are being grabbed...
01:04:44...that they're being preserved...
01:04:45...that there are different videos...
01:04:47...potentially being collected by the International Criminal Court...
01:04:50...from what Elliot and Bellingcat have been grabbing...
01:04:52...it just creates a much richer environment...
01:04:54...for actually providing the evidence...
01:04:56...that will be needed long term.
01:04:57Now the challenge will be getting him into custody...
01:04:59...and actually getting him extradited...
01:05:01...so that you can have a trial...
01:05:03...but that's really a political question...
01:05:04...and not a technical one.
01:05:17Yeah, we begin on a bit...
01:05:24...zorgen to make over Timmy...
01:05:27...want...
01:05:28...it comes al vaker voor...
01:05:30...dat bepaalde leden van het team...
01:05:32...een tijdje niet op slack zijn...
01:05:34...of misschien druk zijn we iets anders...
01:05:37...en Timmy werkt natuurlijk aan aardig wat visualisaties...
01:05:40...maar...
01:05:42...we hebben nu al echt...
01:05:44...heel lang niet van hem gehoord...
01:05:46...en we kunnen er ook niet bereiken.
01:05:47Uhm...
01:05:49...en als zelfs...
01:05:50...Elliott...
01:05:52...ongerust raakt dan...
01:05:54...dan...
01:05:55...when you know people online...
01:05:57...and something happens to them in the real world...
01:05:59...and they're suddenly not online...
01:06:00...you realize how much of how you reach out to them...
01:06:03...is through...
01:06:04...you know, directly contact them online...
01:06:06...you know, sending them a direct message on Twitter...
01:06:08...or contact them on Slack...
01:06:09...and...
01:06:10...you know, when we're phoning up...
01:06:11...there's no answer on his phone...
01:06:13...we suddenly...
01:06:15...felt very disconnected from him...
01:06:18...and it's quite...
01:06:19...you know, considering...
01:06:20...the pressure we get from the Russian government...
01:06:23...it's very worrying when someone just disappears.
01:06:27I've tried to call with HDI...
01:06:29...and...
01:06:30...the phone was not taken off...
01:06:33...yeah, that's pretty...
01:06:36...fucked up.
01:06:39One of the possibilities that kind of is added to our list...
01:06:47...of things that could have happened to him...
01:06:48...is maybe it has been a state actor...
01:06:50...has finally decided to do something...
01:06:51...and that is kind of worrying.
01:06:53You just have to look at what's happened in the UK...
01:06:55...you know, in 2018...
01:06:56...with the Skripal poisoning.
01:07:00It is now clear...
01:07:01...that Mr Skripal and his daughter...
01:07:03...were poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent...
01:07:06...of a type developed by Russia.
01:07:08This is part of a group of nerve agents known as Novichok.
01:07:12That's obviously very concerning...
01:07:14...when even in the UK things like that are happening.
01:07:35When you are investigating...
01:07:37...what powerful people do...
01:07:39...whether they're states or companies...
01:07:41...or billionaires...
01:07:42...you are vulnerable in many different ways.
01:07:44And you can be investigated yourself.
01:07:47You can be surveilled.
01:07:49You can have propaganda campaigns launched against you.
01:07:54You can get harassed online.
01:07:56All of that.
01:07:58And I think the more important your work is...
01:08:02...and the closer it is to power...
01:08:04...the closer it gets...
01:08:07...to figuring out what power is doing...
01:08:09...the more risk there is.
01:08:11...
01:08:18...
01:08:19...
01:08:21...the more risk.
01:08:22...
01:08:23...the more risk.
01:08:24You can have a risk.
01:08:25...
01:08:26...
01:08:28...
01:08:29...
01:08:30The goal of the Ukraine rocket is Vladimir Putin's plane.
01:08:34The Russian plane number one.
01:08:51The jet has all the available images of the 17th and 18th of 2014...
01:08:56...of this bug Taylor.
01:08:59This bug Taylor has many unique products.
01:09:05Based on these specific features, the GRT was able to retrieve a type of fingerprint from this bug Taylor.
01:09:13Na een uitgebreid en arbeidsintensief vergelijkend onderzoek, waarin vele bug Taylor's zijn betrokken...
01:09:19...is it yet tot de conclusie gekomen dat de bug Taylor, waarmee vlucht MH17 is neergeschoten...
01:09:26...afkomstig is van de 53ste Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, oftewel de 53ste Brigade uit Koersk in de Russische Federatie.
01:09:36Wij beseffen...
01:09:46...wij verrichten als JIT ons eigen onafhankelijk onderzoek.
01:09:49En de conclusie die wij op basis van dat onderzoek trekken...
01:09:53...moet gebaseerd zijn op wettig en overtuigend bewijs...
01:09:57...dat ook stellend houdt in een zittingzaal.
01:09:59Can I ask you a question for Dutch TV?
01:10:01Hi.
01:10:02Hi.
01:10:03Gertje van Dennekamp, reporter van Nieuwsuur.
01:10:05Uhm...
01:10:07No.
01:10:08Uhm...
01:10:09In fact, wat we heard today was what you already investigated a couple of years back.
01:10:16Are you happy with this result?
01:10:19Well, it's nice to see that they agree with us.
01:10:21I mean, if they presented something completely different, that would have been a huge problem.
01:10:24But we...
01:10:25I mean, not only did we have the stuff that we saw on stage today...
01:10:27...but we had an additional material that further confirms it's the same missile launcher.
01:10:31And tomorrow we'll be having our own press conference about a new report we're releasing as well.
01:10:35About something that no one's worried about yet.
01:10:37So that'll be big news.
01:10:38What can we expect tomorrow?
01:10:40Uhm...
01:10:41We're not gonna say too much at the moment, because it is very sensitive what we're about to find.
01:10:44But it involves, uhm...
01:10:45More details about who is responsible.
01:10:48Uhm...
01:10:49And it was behind, uhm...
01:10:50What happened with MH17.
01:10:51Okay, thank you.
01:10:54Good luck tomorrow.
01:10:55It was very beginning in the research that we had already seen Bellingcat.
01:10:58We couldn't go to Delict.
01:11:00But, for example, in the first days, there were already tap-in.
01:11:05Well, tap-in.
01:11:06That's normal in your own research.
01:11:08That's not the citizens.
01:11:09They were already on the internet.
01:11:11There were photos on the internet.
01:11:12So for us was internet, at the beginning, very important.
01:11:16In the beginning, we thought, what happened here?
01:11:19Because we are used to know more than the outside world.
01:11:23And that we do our research in that relative calm.
01:11:26And now, there were only researchers who were active over the whole world.
01:11:31And actually, they were very soon with a sort of a possible scenario.
01:11:35So, that was just a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit.
01:11:39But now, there was soon becoming a way of knowing that that happens actually.
01:11:42Well, some transfer from the internet.
01:11:45We are proud of what they bring about.
01:11:46We should put a bit of a bit of a bit of that at night.
01:11:48We have to look at certain…
01:11:50In a very short time, we have to take a look at this in our research.
01:12:20I answered her, thanks, Julia, for the message.
01:12:27We are very worried and if I can come to the hospital directly.
01:12:32And she wrote back that at the moment, a visit would not be good.
01:12:38He is still recovering from a severe brain inflammation.
01:12:42He was in a coma for a few days, but he is getting better.
01:12:47It would take a while, but he will be well soon.
01:12:50I'm sorry I have read to you so bad news.
01:12:54He's doing well. I mean, he's lucky and he's doing well.
01:13:00But it's still very sad news, you know?
01:13:13It's the first time we've ever done a press conference,
01:13:15so everything that's happening here is the first time I've tried to do anything.
01:13:18So, yeah, there's a lot of moving parts that I'm very unfamiliar with.
01:13:21So, yeah, it's stressful.
01:13:24Very stressful.
01:13:31Welcome, everyone.
01:13:32Today, Bellingcat and the Insider will be releasing details of a new investigation into the downing of MH17.
01:13:37One thing that we must make clear is that we cannot today, or basically at any time, confirm exactly the role of this person who goes by the call name Orion, Orion, as published by the Joint Investigation Team and earlier by the Secret Service of Ukraine.
01:13:53I think that this person was the highest military-ranking officer at the time in the so-called Lugansk People's Republic.
01:14:04He represented the military intelligence of Russia at the time, and he was in direct command and control of the mercenary slash volunteer operations of military units and militants in eastern Ukraine, in the Lugansk area of eastern Ukraine.
01:14:21Oleg Vladimirovich Ivankov is the full name, the full legal name that we have identified.
01:14:27He was born on the 2nd of April 1967 and his nickname is Orion.
01:14:36His nickname is Orion.
01:15:06Daily Telegraph, Netherlands.
01:15:08How can you connect
01:15:10this guy directly to the
01:15:12downing of MH-70?
01:15:14Proof is for now only circumstantial.
01:15:16We believe that the joint investigation team
01:15:18has the proof
01:15:20that they will publish in due course.
01:15:22At this point, our reasons to
01:15:24strongly believe in the hypothesis
01:15:26he's connected is based on the fact that
01:15:28the day before, two days before
01:15:30the shooting down, his voice
01:15:32was recorded as
01:15:34confirming that they received the book and they would
01:15:36start shooting down planes
01:15:38that was heard clearly on a call
01:15:40released on the 18th of
01:15:42July 2014.
01:15:44From a change of command
01:15:46perspective, we do not see a hypothesis
01:15:48in which he is not involved.
01:15:50Okay, that's everything. Thank you very
01:15:52much for your time. We'll be doing
01:15:54one-on-one interviews in five minutes. Thank you very much.
01:16:16Well, thank you for helping me out.
01:16:18And, um,
01:16:20yes, well, it's a big surprise
01:16:22I think.
01:16:24The 2017 Innovation Awards
01:16:26goes to Christian Tiberts.
01:16:36Bellingcat has kind of developed
01:16:38a lot of the talent that's doing this work
01:16:40now. And more and more because there's recognition
01:16:42of the value of Bellingcat's work.
01:16:44There's more and more people basically
01:16:46being contacted to a part of the Bellingcat team
01:16:48saying, do you want to come and work for this organization
01:16:50or that? And they are the best
01:16:52open source investigators that I know of.
01:16:54Um, so I really want to hire them.
01:16:56But I can't begrudge them that if they want
01:16:58to go off and get an actual job to pay
01:17:00them a wage rather than volunteering.
01:17:02It's, it's the online community
01:17:04of people that are doing this voluntarily
01:17:06that are looking into stuff to challenge
01:17:08bigger actors in this world.
01:17:10And I think this is, uh, this is a really
01:17:12great thing to see developing and I hope,
01:17:14yeah, that this will stimulate it as well.
01:17:16Thank you so much. Thank you.
01:17:20It would suck certainly if Christian went off
01:17:22and worked somewhere else.
01:17:24But I wouldn't begrudge them because, you know,
01:17:26people have to get paid for the work they're doing.
01:17:30Okay, where do we start?
01:17:32You mentioned the Dezium thing.
01:17:34Yes, so they've agreed to give me
01:17:36basically 80,000 euros for the first year
01:17:38and then 80,000 for the second year
01:17:40and that could possibly go up to 100,000
01:17:42in the second year.
01:17:44In principle, we would be ready to consider
01:17:46longer contributions to Bellingcat.
01:17:48Yeah, I mean, for me it's just a matter
01:17:50of making sure the next six months is covered
01:17:52because we do not have any flexibility in the funding
01:17:54of Bellingcat at the moment.
01:17:56We're literally at the point where my back account
01:17:58is kind of dropping to nearly zero.
01:18:00I don't think I could have been here without Bellingcat.
01:18:12Yeah, Bellingcat is at some point
01:18:14just as a family going to feel.
01:18:16but just the strength that we give
01:18:20with the research that we do.
01:18:22Of course, sometimes as a very large group,
01:18:24sometimes as an individual,
01:18:26but always within the collective.
01:18:28We've learned so much.
01:18:32We've strengthened so much energy,
01:18:34so much energy, I think.
01:18:36And trust.
01:18:38And a platform for each other.
01:18:40That I could have been here in New York
01:18:42and at the New York Times
01:18:44without Bellingcat.
01:18:45Actually, what I do at the New York Times
01:18:48is just to apply the Bellingcat method.
01:18:51Open source research, open source investigation.
01:18:54To apply on a wide scale of issues.
01:19:00Yeah, I think,
01:19:01at Bellingcat is everything possible.
01:19:03We can research everything that we want.
01:19:05And at the New York Times
01:19:07I always learn how to keep it in the back.
01:19:09How can I make this
01:19:11to be able to make a large audience?
01:19:14So you zoom in, what we do with Bellingcat.
01:19:17And with Bellingcat is it nice
01:19:18that we can publish a report
01:19:20and know everything we found.
01:19:22All the details,
01:19:23all the small steps
01:19:25that you do in research.
01:19:27In the New York Times,
01:19:28you zoom in,
01:19:29but then you zoom out
01:19:31and you leave a lot of details
01:19:33maybe in the final video
01:19:36or the article
01:19:37or the article
01:19:38that is made.
01:19:39Because of course,
01:19:40a very large public
01:19:41should be available.
01:19:42The two men wanted in the UK
01:19:48for the Skripal poisonings
01:19:49insisted there were civilians on holiday
01:19:51visiting Salisbury.
01:19:52But today,
01:19:53the real identity of one of the men
01:19:55was revealed by the investigations team
01:19:57at Bellingcat.
01:19:58He's not, as he claimed,
01:20:00Ruslan Boshirov, a fitness instructor,
01:20:03but Colonel Anatoly Chopiga,
01:20:05a highly decorated
01:20:06Russian military intelligence officer.
01:20:08The Skripal case
01:20:09that came up recently
01:20:10was actually not something
01:20:11we were really focused on
01:20:12until the UK released images
01:20:14of the suspects
01:20:15along with pseudonyms.
01:20:16We were in a position
01:20:17to get details of the ID documents
01:20:20from Russia
01:20:21for those two people.
01:20:22And we discovered
01:20:23some interesting things.
01:20:24For example,
01:20:25their ID numbers
01:20:26were nearly sequential.
01:20:27There was only a couple
01:20:28of spaces between them.
01:20:29And we discovered
01:20:30another GRU officer
01:20:31who'd been arrested in Montenegro
01:20:33also had a very similar number
01:20:35that was only about 25 digits difference.
01:20:37So we discovered
01:20:38this little batch of ID numbers
01:20:39that seemed to be linked
01:20:40to GRU agents.
01:20:41And once we actually published that,
01:20:43we had a big reaction
01:20:45from the media,
01:20:46lots of coverage in Russia,
01:20:47re-reaction from the Russian government.
01:20:49Are these people you?
01:20:51Yeah, that's us.
01:20:53What were you doing there?
01:20:55There's the famous
01:20:56Salisbury Cathedral,
01:20:58famous not only in Europe
01:20:59but in the whole world.
01:21:00It's famous for its
01:21:02123-meter spire.
01:21:04They claim they got there
01:21:05and the snow was so deep
01:21:06they had to turn back,
01:21:07but it was, you know,
01:21:08it's not a long walk
01:21:09to Salisbury Cathedral
01:21:10and you can see it
01:21:11from the train station.
01:21:12And when the police
01:21:13released their photographs,
01:21:14you had them walking through
01:21:15like Gatwick Airport
01:21:16and they claimed that
01:21:17they were going through
01:21:18the same gate at the same time
01:21:19and it couldn't be real.
01:21:20But again,
01:21:21that just turned out to be nonsense.
01:21:22People found images
01:21:24of those gates
01:21:25at Gatwick Airport
01:21:26on Google Street View
01:21:27and they could prove
01:21:28that they were just walking
01:21:29side by side,
01:21:30not in the same place
01:21:31at the same time
01:21:32as people were trying
01:21:33to claim they were.
01:21:34But yeah,
01:21:35the reaction has been
01:21:36absolutely massive
01:21:37and we've yet again revealed
01:21:38the identity of another GRU officer.
01:21:39The first thing to say
01:21:40is presumably
01:21:41they messed up very badly here.
01:21:42somebody that's so senior
01:21:44in Russian intelligence
01:21:45that was a very bad day
01:21:47for him, wasn't it?
01:21:48Today has been
01:21:49probably the worst day of his life.
01:21:51But tell me about his record
01:21:53because you've been through
01:21:54all his records,
01:21:55you know what he did,
01:21:56you know how senior he is.
01:21:57We've identified him
01:21:58as decorated to the highest degree
01:22:00in Russia.
01:22:01He's got the award
01:22:02of Hero of the Russian Federation.
01:22:04So this is somebody
01:22:05who did something outstanding
01:22:07in the eyes of Putin
01:22:09and that somebody
01:22:10was sent
01:22:11on a mission
01:22:12to poison
01:22:13an ex-colleague.
01:22:14What,
01:22:15представьте себе,
01:22:16у вас есть.
01:22:17Вы гражданин
01:22:18своей собственной стороны.
01:22:20Значит,
01:22:21и вдруг возникает
01:22:22у вас человек
01:22:23который предаёт
01:22:24свою страну.
01:22:25Как вы к нему
01:22:26отнесётесь?
01:22:27Или любой здесь сидящий,
01:22:29представьте,
01:22:30любой стороны.
01:22:31Он просто подонок.
01:22:33Вот и всё.
01:22:39И так далее
01:22:55двадцать дней
01:22:57я лежала в кома
01:22:59у меня,
01:23:00у меня есть Меногидис
01:23:01и я кое-как,
01:23:02And then I woke up and didn't know where I was.
01:23:09And only through the support of my family and my other daughter
01:23:16is it gradually better.
01:23:21I was about 3 months in the hospital, before I could be again.
01:23:28Okay, I'm sorry.
01:23:31It's a weird thing because when you're working online with people,
01:23:51you don't get too much of their real personality coming through.
01:23:55So it's kind of strange, especially it's like I've worked with these people
01:23:58for so long in a purely online space and then you meet them in person
01:24:02and it's always kind of a weird, it's like you really know them
01:24:05but at the same time you don't really know them.
01:24:08One great reason why people join big organizations like the BBC or the New York Times
01:24:15is the institution has lawyers.
01:24:18It has professionals who can help you if you get sued
01:24:23or who know what a safe practice is.
01:24:27And people operating on their own don't have that.
01:24:31It's one of the risks.
01:24:32But you could also say from another point of view that that's exactly why they're heroes.
01:24:37That's exactly why they're inspiring.
01:24:39Because they do this work because they believe in it
01:24:42and they don't have a lot of protections.
01:24:44But they do it because it's important.
01:24:46We used to live in an environment where we had gatekeepers.
01:24:50So at a certain time of night everybody would sit down and watch television at the same time.
01:24:54We had a number of newspapers or radio outlets
01:24:57and there were professional journalists giving you information
01:25:00that had been fact-checked and sourced professionally.
01:25:03So when into that landscape you have people flooding it
01:25:07with misinformation and lies and falsehoods
01:25:10then what it leads to is people just saying
01:25:13I'm just going to step away from the process.
01:25:15So you're going to have people not voting.
01:25:17You're going to have people turning away from the mainstream media.
01:25:20And you're going to have people basically connecting with one another
01:25:24with other people who feel the same way as them.
01:25:26So we're not quite there yet
01:25:28but it's not going to take very long for us to be in that situation.
01:25:31I've got Bellingcat t-shirts for everyone.
01:25:34It's definitely not because my wife told me to get rid of them.
01:25:38There is no solution.
01:25:40There's no fix.
01:25:42There's just endless struggle ahead.
01:25:47And if you believe in democracy
01:25:50if you think it's important that political democracy survive
01:25:55that we have consent of the governed
01:25:58that we have open societies
01:26:00that we have civil liberties for all
01:26:03if you think those things are important
01:26:05we're entering into a period where they have to be fought for.
01:26:08Yes.
01:26:09OK. So first of all, a toast to Timmy.
01:26:13It's great to see he's better.
01:26:15He's recovering.
01:26:17So a toast to Timmy.
01:26:18Toast to Timmy.
01:26:19Yeah.
01:26:20It's cold.
01:26:21It's cold.
01:26:22Cheers.
01:26:23Cheers.
01:26:24Cheers.
01:26:25Cheers.
01:26:26The investigative website Bellingcat has identified the second suspect
01:26:31responsible for poisoning former Russian spy Sergei Skripal.
01:26:35Bellingcat has named him as Alexander Yevgenovich Mishkin.
01:26:39A medical doctor with Russia's military intelligence agency, the GRU.
01:26:43The GRU.
01:26:44Hellingcat says he was recruited by the GRU intelligence service
01:26:47during his medical studies.
01:26:48It's completely annual.
01:26:50Good eye toää.
01:26:51Please take good guitars.
01:26:52Toast toast toast.
01:26:53You have to plan your vision for beheading today.
01:26:54You have to plan your vision for Kazfen and Maria앙on Miranda.
01:26:55emborabed界, του education of Toast toast.
01:26:56You have to plan your vision for the turninghof of all ours.
01:26:59It's essential to be 对 bonne grounds.
01:27:00And finally, it looks.
01:27:01Do you need to plan your vision because you want to plan it?