UPDATE: The Kommersant Evidence
Kommersant publishes interviews with people from Chepiga’s home village. The article makes clear he has not been seen there for many years. It states that opinions differ on whether Chepiga is Boshirov. One woman says she recognised Boshirov as Chepiga when he appeared on TV, especially the dark eyes, though she had not seen him since school. Another woman states it is not Chepiga as when she last saw him ten years ago he was already pretty bald, and he has a more open face, although the eyes are similarly brown.
Naturally mainstream media journalists are tweeting and publishing the man’s evidence and leaving out the woman’s evidence.
But the Kommersant article gives them a bigger challenge. Kommersant is owned by close Putin political ally, Putin’s former student flatmate, Chariman of Gazprominvestholdings and the UK’s richest resident, Alisher Usmanov. That Russia’s most authoritative paper, with ownership very close to Putin, is printing such open and honest reporting rather belies the “Russia is a dictatorship” narrative. And unlike the Guardian and BBC websites, on Kommersant website ordinary Russians can post freely their views on the case, and are.
One thing this does stand up is that Chepiga definitely exists.
The evidence mounts that Russia is not telling the truth about “Boshirov” and “Petrov”. If those were real identities, they would have been substantiated in depth by now. As we know of Yulia Skripal’s boyfriend, cat, cousin and grandmother, real depth on the lives and milieu of “Boshirov” and “Petrov” would be got out. It is plainly in the interests of Russia’s state and its oligarchy to establish that they truly exist, and concern for the privacy of individuals would be outweighed by that. The rights of the individual are not prioritised over the state interest in Russia.
But equally the identification of “Boshirov” with “Colonel Chepiga” is a nonsense.
The problem is with Bellingcat’s methodology. They did not start with any prior intelligence that “Chepiga” is “Boshirov”. They rather allegedly searched databases of GRU operatives of about the right age, then trawled photos in yearbooks of them until they found one that looked a bit like “Boshirov”. And guess what? It looks a bit like “Boshirov”. If you ignore the substantially different skull shape and nose.
Only the picture on the left is Chepiga. The two on the right are from “Boshirov’s” Russian passport application file, and the photo of “Boshirov” issued by Scotland Yard.
Like almost the entire internet, I assumed both black and white photos were from Chepiga’s files, and was willing to admit the identification of Chepiga with “Boshirov” as valid. But once you understand is that – as Bellingcat confirm if you read it closely – only the photo on the left is Chepiga, you start to ask questions.
The two guys on the right and the centre are undoubtedly the same person. But is the guy on the left the same, but younger?
Betaface.com, which runs industry standard software, gives the faces an 83% similarity, putting the probability of them being the same person at 2.8%.
By comparison it gives me a 72% identity with Chepiga and a 2.1% chance of being him.
There is a superficial resemblance. But if you take the standard ratios used for facial recognition, you get a very different story. If you draw a line between the centre of the pupils of the two guys centre and right, and then take a perpendicular from that line to the tip of the nose, you get a key ratio. The two on the right both have a ratio of 100:75, which is unsurprising since they are the same person. The one on the left has a ratio of 100:68, which is very different.
To put that more simply, his nose is much shorter, and less certainly his eyes are further apart.
It is possible this could happen in photos but it still be the same person. The head would have to be tilted backward or forward at quite a sharp angle to alter these ratios, which does not seem to be the case. The camera could be positioned substantially above or below the subject, again not apparently the case. And the photo could be resized with height and width ratios changed. That would hard to detect.
But the three white dots across the bottom of the nose are particularly compelling (the middle one largely obscured by a red dot in the Chepiga photo). They illustrate that Chepiga has a snub nose and Boshirov something of a hook. Again, the software is reinforcing what they eye can plainly see.
However, there are also other ratios that are different. Chepiga has a narrower mouth compared to the distance between the pupils than the two photos of “Boshirov”, and that is measured on the same plane. The difference is 100-80 compared to 100-88. It is a ratio that can be changed by facial expression, but this does not seem to be the case here.
Professor Dame Sue Black of the University of Dundee is the world’s leading expert in facial forensic reconstruction. I once spent a fascinating lunch sitting next to her, while I was Rector. I shall contact her for her view on whether the guy on the left is the same person, and if she is kind enough to give me an opinion, I shall pass it on to you unadulterated.
This website is less definitive, but gives a nice clear result, and you can repeat it yourself without having to subscribe (unlike Betaface.com).
Again for comparison, I tried two photos of myself 12 years apart and got “from nearly the same person”.
It is worth repeating that the only evidence that Chepiga is Boshirov offered by Bellingcat is this photo. The rest of their article simply attempts to establish Chepiga’s career.
This is gross hypocrisy by Bellingcat, who have argued that scores of photos of White Helmets being Jihadi fighters are not valid evidence because you cannot safely recognise faces from photographs.
Yet Higgins now claims his facial identification of Chepiga as Boshirov as “definitive” and “conclusive”, despite the absence of moles, scars and blemishes. Higgins stands exposed as a quite disgusting hypocrite. Let me go further. I do not believe that Higgins did not take the elementary step of running facial recognition technology over the photos, and I believe he is hiding the results from you. Is it not also astonishing that the mainstream media have not done this simple test?
The bulk of the Bellingcat article is just trying to prove the reality of the existence of Chepiga. This is hard to evaluate, but as the evidence to link him to “Boshirov” is non-existent, is a different argument. Having set out to find a GRU officer of the same age who looks a bit like “Boshirov”, they trumpet repeatedly the fact that Chepiga is about the same age as evidence, in a crass display of circular argument.
This unofficial website does indeed name Chepiga as a Hero of the Russian Federation and recipient of 20 awards, as Bellingcat claims. But it is impossible to know if it is authentic, and by contrast there is no Chepiga on the official list of Heroes of the Russian Federation, for the stated 2014 or for any other year, which Bellingcat fail to mention. Their other documents and anonymous sources are unverifiable.
The photo of the military school honours arch, with Chepiga added right at the end and not quite in line, looks to me very suspect. My surmise so far would be that most likely Bellingcat’s source of supply is Ukrainian, and trying to tie the Skripal affair into the Ukrainian civil war via Chepiga.
My view of the most likely explanation on presently available evidence is this:
Boshirov is not Boshirov, and the Russian Government are lying.
Boshirov is not Chepiga, and Bellingcat are lying.
The whole Skripal novichok story still does not hang together, and the British government are lying.
I will continue to form my opinions as further evidence becomes available.
UPDATE Incredibly, at 13.15 on 27 September the BBC TV News ran the story showing only the two photos of “Boshirov”, which of course are the same person, and not showing the photo of Chepiga at all!
BBC News at One
1. It is Bellingcat – they have a track record of lieing about pretty much everything.
2. Yes I love the fact that the only attempt at reporting comes fro Kommersant – but you should know that most of the Russian printed press is liberal and on balance against Putin (though not necessarily against all its policies – a newspaper would be committing financial suicide if it proposed giving up Crimea).
3. Yes search enough around Salisbury and you are guaranteed to find a couple of Russians who were there at some point one weekend, though you might struggle to prove a specific timeline. And search for someone looking like one Russian male and you have a hell of a lot of Russian males who will look a bit like him
4. Yes pretty sure it is not the same guy.
5. Ukraine is likely the 100% source of the whole Skripal story from start to finish.
First he is a rare target who the Russians might want to kill but the Ukrainians have no need to protect.
Second the whole MH17 scam has been one trail of lie after lie based on evidence found unsourced by Ukraine intelligence (for example the bits of BUK rocket found at an unstated place).
6. Bellingcat’s series of lies – frequently proven lies as in all the CW attacks in Syria, especially those found to be false – started with MH17, are all pro-CIT/Nato and all anti-Russian and are guaranteed a nod and a wink for UK or US off the record services “you can print Bellingcat stories”.
7. Personally I reckon Borishov and Petrov are… Borishov and Petrov.
My suspicion is that your item 5 is pretty much spot on. The Yanks were running with Bellincat’s crazy analyses of MH17 and so was the BBC. The US claimed it had evidence that Russia shot down MH17 but has never produced any not even to the JIT (Joint Investigative Team) inquiry. The “evidence” comes from Bellingcat. Ukraine almost certainly downed MH17 and the decorated pilot shadowing the passenger plane, since having committed suicide, or been suicided, though the guilt of his crime.
The BUK missile evidence seems to point to Ukraine too. But the JIT inquiry is not allowed to consider evidence that might point to Ukraine. (I have never before heard of an Inquiry that exonerates one of the main suspects without investigation). Apparently the serial numbers from the BUK missile fragments presented to the JIT come from a missile sold to Ukraine in 1996.
https://www.rt.com/news/438679-mh17-important-evidence-investigation/
This will be ignored.
As to “7. Personally I reckon Borishov and Petrov are… Borishov and Petrov.” I am not sure. I think they were hiding something. They were clearly scared. But they could just as easily be Russian agents working for Ukraine. This is speculative but not without some foundation. One report says they owed big money from business ventures in Ukraine. If this is true and they were asked to go to Salisbury a couple of times to “pay off” this debt they may well have done so, The whole Skripal affair reeks of a western intelligence false-flag.
The day the BBC broke the story Dan Walker said this looks like a story that will run. Quite right Dan.
“Apparently the serial numbers from the BUK missile fragments presented to the JIT come from a missile sold to Ukraine in 1996.”
Sorry, it was manufactured in 1986 and owned by Ukraine.
«I think they were hiding something. … The whole Skripal affair reeks of a western intelligence false-flag.»
I dearly hope and believe it is not “false flag” because I pay a good chunk of taxes to fund this country’s “security” services, and it would be a really poorly organized and presented false flag.
My best guess is still that S Skripal and/or J Skripal were into black-market dealings, perhaps with russian gangsters, and S Skripal for example was a GRU guy and spent 7 years in a russian prison, and surely known quite a few interesting “biznesmen”, and during one of the “deals” there was an accident or incident.
The english “security” services then decided to turn that into a propaganda item, as if there were not enough russians murdered in the UK during the endless russian gang wars.
I am no slouch at facial comparison, and frankly, the first two pics especially do look very much like the same guy, some years apart, and from a slightly different angle, the first face is tilted up and askew slightly, as demonstrated by the chin (shadows), hence the different appearance of the nose. But practically everything else looks identical apart from age difference and haircut, and lighting (all of which affect the apparent difference in face/skull shape). Both details and overall effect. It’s 99% the same guy. I have no dog in this fight, I found it highly incredible that the Russians would have been so stupid as to try it on like that, and the British state hardly has a sterling record or truth-telling itself, however, they (ie the Russians) could also be relying on just that response, even making it a part of the cover. In fact I would prefer it’s not them, (ie the state) because it really demonstrates a basic deceptiveness and viciousness that is not helpful in these times especially, and too-clever-by-half stupidity. I have refrained from commenting on this matter for a good while, but this looks like a real match, though it’s still possible that it was not a direct Kremlin op, but a semi-freelance stunt, but even if so, the state becomes liable by participating in the subsequent lies, apart from general lack of honesty and effective oversight.
Couch potatoes and slouches at facial comparison would say that the first two pics especially do look very much like the same guy, some years apart. Falsely claiming they have no dog in this fight, but actually being virulently Anti-Russian, they would claim that it is ‘lighting differences” that account for the actual biological differences seen in the photos. Those of us who actually have training in facial recognition can easily see that the noses are different, the skull shape is different, but additionally, the trait that slouches and sleezes don’t notice (because they WANT it to be Russia), and that “lighting angles” and “head-tilt” can’t change is the shape and inclination in the eyebrows. Carefull observers will easily see that the right eyebrow in two of the pictures (Boshirov) are the same (‘caret’ shaped), but the right eyebrow in the third picture (Chepiga, in the left-hand picture) is not the same (smooth curve). By the “right eyebrow” I mean the persons’ right eyebrow – on the left side as you view the photograph. Also, we take into account the time of the pictures and the ages of the subjects. The photo of Chepiga is nearly twenty years old, while the photos of Boshirov are recent. Unless Chepiga (the GRU Colonel) has some Fountain-of-Youth elixir, the two are not the same man. Chepiga is in his Forties now, while Boshirovis Mid-Twenties to early Thirties. It’s 100% NOT the same guy. I DO have a dog in this fight – actually two dogs – they are named Truth and Justice.
Truth AND justice, eh? Get you….
I can assure you I do not ‘want it to be Russia’, and find the UKG’s story preposterous but they very much look like the same guy. And I am a super recogniser (google it and take the test – I got 100%).
You know that eyebrows, caretted or not, can move and/or be reshaped, right? 🙂
“Eyebrows can move and/or be reshaped”. Really??? That has all the hallmarks of a desperate explanation. I suppose Boshirov had it done cosmetically… just in case. And had his nose redesigned whilst he was at it. So what you’re saying is that, leaving aside the eyebrows, the nose and the skull shape, you would contend it’s the same guy in the first and third pictures? And discounting the strong possibility of photoshopping? Okay….
You just convinced me, 100%, it is the same guy, with your snide and dishonest bullshit. I am by no means ‘virulently anti-Russian’, along with the rest of your garbage you made a mistake to pull that bs on me. The angle and lighting differences in the first two shots are real and evident, the noses and rest are practically identical allowing for that, even the eyebrows are overall very similar, and guess what, fake-‘expert’, eyebrow shapes can also change over time, especially with different grooming. There’s also no way ‘Borisov’ is mid-twenties – he looks exactly like ‘Chepiga’ would look with another twenty-odd years.
I really hoped the Russian state was not involved, because it proves real stupidity and immorality, that is a real obstacle to just the sort of cooperation that the West and Russia need and which I have called for for a long time. The patent bs from the likes of it and you in this case make it only more likely that it is.
:
These photographs prove absolutely NOTHING.
Hell, where are we now believing provenances of items as revealed by who? Bellingcat? The British Govt? Really?
I hope this is just a temporary brain-fart of Craig’s.
.
Love the site Craig and am a big admirer of your work – but the photos on the left and centre are clearly the same dude.
Try this simple test.
Anyone remember stereograms? Concentrate on the right two pictures and go slightly cross eyed (or relax your eyes) until the two pictures overlap into one. Your eyes should ‘lock’ onto an image made up of the two pictures. The differences between them will become obvious. Note how the face shapes appear to overlap well.
Now try that again with the left pictures. It’s immediately obvious that there are significant differences – nose shape, face width.
That’s proof enough for me.
The shot angles and lighting as well as age are different – taking those into account, it’s a clear match. Exactly what that proves is another matter, but like coles said, it’s clearly the same dude.
The BBC has put the “left-hand” picture back on, and it now quotes Bellingcat as saying that “Col. Chepiga” is a decorated officer who fought in Chechenya and went under-cover in 2009. I still agree with Craig that the whole Skripal affair is a very fishy matter, but I also agree with several comments here that Putin must now up the ante and show the world everything he has if indeed his Government has nothing to do with the affair. For example, a full explanation about Col. Chepiga’s past and present, and even his personal appearance on TV, togerther with Ruslan Boshirov. I am sorry if this ruins the careers of some people, but what is at stake is too important to just let it go. Putin obviously told Petrov and Boshirov to go and be interviewed by Margarita Simonyan. I am afraid that he will have to go the extra mile on this and even allow foreign journalists to ask questions to the three (two?) guys. Thast is the way this dirty war seems to be played and Russia has already volunteered to take the matter to the media, so now it is too late to sit back and claim that they will only respond if a proper criminal investigation is opened before a competent court.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-45656004
«now it is too late to sit back and claim that they will only respond if a proper criminal investigation is opened before a competent court.»
That’s ridiculous, and obviously the russian government is simply occasionally trolling the neocons (rather than lying as our blogger suggests). Why should they attempt to prove a negative every time that the neocons come up with an allegation, whether it be the MH117 or the “novichok” etc. etc.; it would just make more noise and the noise would just persuade more people that there is no “smoke” without “fire”, even if there is no evidence of “fire”.
It certainly would be VERY interesting to see the alleged ‘same person’ as two people both standing in the same room together!
“The BBC has put the “left-hand” picture back on, “
So ? I believe the original was on a live broadcast so they put it back on the website? And did they highlight thier initial deliberate obfuscation?
If you want to continue to feed this narrative Craig, that is up to you, but I do not believe that the Russian state poisoned the Skripals. The more you feed it the more bloated it becomes.
That is the bottom line.
The two pictures on the left do look like the same person. But who that person is I think is very much open to question. Focusing on the identity of these individuals takes your focus away from the absurdity of the whole episode.
craig isn’t creating this narrative, the msm and the intel services are, whether he comments on it at all is irrelevant. i like his honest reporting on this subject.
All of the reporters feel insulated from having to fact check anything as the ‘story’ they are running is simply that Bellingcat are suggesting such and such. Very off that they decided to run with one small blog’s theories though, isn’t it? Unless, of course, someone has helpfully pointed it out to them and said, ‘Have you seen these interesting reports in Bellingcat?’
Someone has ‘suggested’ they take a look and that ‘someone’ may hold enough of a position for the story to be swallowed, er..I mean believed.
None of this gets us closer to the truth. I agree though that all are lying. None of this is as simple as anyone would have us believe. And IF those responsible for the attempted murders WERE Russian we are absolutely sure that it means this was directly ordered by Vladimir Putin, was state-sanctioned and is a sign of his contempt for ‘the west’
But wait, WHY does that follow? Does their nationality mean that they could not have been acting for another party, acting outwith state sanction OR, as was suggested in the Litvinenko case, being carried out with the connivance of our own intelligence, sections of Russian intelligence/military/politicians to destabilise Putin with a view to his replacement. So these murders may be the west assisting their preferred candidate jockey for position. Remember that this happened close to the Russian elections too.
Would our intelligence really do something like that?? Look to the past, they have done much worse than this already, of COURSE they would do this. NB I’m not accusing OUR intelligence of committing the act, merely of facilitating it…
And, no. He is “Bashirov” in English anyway.
Bellingcat is widely know as a pusher of Western state propaganda. His American-style cartoon image is designed to give you one of those “i’m one of the good guy’s” vibes.
The British state machine has a lot riding on this narrative. Their whole credibility hangs in the balance. How would it look if they were proved wrong about Russia’s involvement?
They cannot allow that to happen!
I am quite sure that they have meticulously planned this latest propaganda effort in order to convince the waverers. They’ve had six months to get it right. I think plenty of people are going to be convinced this time. I know it is a lie, but I have been following it very closely.
The best you can do, in my view is hold on to your baseline beliefs in this matter and not let yourself be drawn into the web of lies and deceit. Do not try to counter this! Ignore it. Bellingcat is a shill.
Where are the Skripals? Why have they not been interviewed?
Where is Nick Bailey? Why has he not been interviewed?
The British government clearly feels it has a great deal to hide.
“Higgins has received significant praise and support from human rights groups, journalists, and non-profit organisations. “Brown Moses is among the best out there when it comes to weapons monitoring in Syria,” said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch.[1] The New York Times war reporter C.J. Chivers said that fellow journalists owe a debt to Higgins’ investigative reporting in Syria. “Many people, whether they admit or not, have been relying on that blog’s daily labour to cull the uncountable videos that circulate from the conflict,” he said.[1] Amnesty International said that the Brown Moses Blog was vital in proving the Syrian government was using ballistic missiles, information then used to send a research mission to Syria.[25]
Eliot Higgins has been a subject of interest for the British and U.S. media and is described described as “one of the world’s foremost citizen journalists” by News Limited reporter Victoria Craw.[26] He has been profiled in print by The Guardian,[1] The Independent,[9] The Huffington Post,[5] and The New Yorker.[2] Television features have been run by Channel 4 News[25] and CNN International.[6] He has also been covered by non-English sources.[27] ”
Amnesty International and Human Rghts Watch have good things to say about him. To my mind, he seems no less reliable – indeed he seems much more reliable – than characters like “Professor” Michel Chudossovsky (or whatever his name is) or the awful Thierry Meyssan of “voltairenet” who are often acclaimed on websites of a certain persusasion.
To paraphrase the late Mandy Rice Davies “You would say that Charles”.
Praised by AI and HRW. That says it all
Anyone worth their salt knows the provenance of those two setups.
Yes, their origins are in the West. So what?
The truth of the matter is that people of a certain persuasion are very happy to cite AI and HRW when they criticise human rights violations occurring in the West and slag them off when they report on human rights violations occurring in one of the regimes they favour.
You have a point CB and that is why the mainstream narratives are so hard to refute. People look at Higgins and Bellingcat as being credible but all of these voices echo off of one another. The many that may seem to corroborate that Higgins is someone whom can be trusted are actually one.
When a narrative is being established one of these organizations reports Bellingcat’s findings and another picks it up and all of them give credence to a single source not many. Groupthink in other words.
Just like the White Helmets etc. When they get an Oscar they have a glow that covers up the shit they’re actually made of.
The echo chamber aspect would more correctly be applied to the comments on websites such as this one and the sources on which such comments feed, surely?
Why the panegyric for BellingCat? He’s an obvious shill for the security services. There are no other possible sources for his information about Boshirov (they aren’t public). A man has to make a living, and when you’re unemployed, if you’re offered money, following your performance in the comment columns of the Guardian (at the time of Libya in 2011), anyone would take it. I’m sure he lives well now.
Praise from HRW and Amnesty? Hardly surprising, as HRW is a US government organisation, and can be expected to follow US policy. Amnesty has given in and bent the knee in recent years. I presume you’re quoting Wiki, article no doubt also written by MI6.
Ah, Craig, the lengths to which you will go to protect your beloved Russia….
Craig’s no fan of the Russian government; he never has been:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2007/06/russian_journal/
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/06/russia_still_mo/
There are loads like that. He attracted a lot of hostile comments here for being critical about the annexation of Crimea.
He just doesn’t like being played by propagandists who want another Cold War. No one should.
I’ll tell you what though; Craig really hates fascists, so the “revolution” in Ukraine probably changed the way he looks at Russia. He was unwilling to accept that many of the “revolutionaries” were fascists, but evidence posted in comments eventually changed his mind.
So says Craig’s protector…
I would like to think we all are. because we are Craig. lol
Yes, he’s like a faithful old guard dog, a lost soul in need of a father.
Skripal was GRU. He worked for the British.
These guys could easily be the same.
Told to meet with a handler in Salisbury.
Shitting themselves on TV when the British story plays out as planned (no one told them their part!).
They’ve got some questions to answer… to their Russian bosses.
Bellend has been given this info by someone.
Pure theatre. A classic English Farce
This makes sense to me. I’ve had the feeling all along that we were meant to question this and think some kind of funny business was going on, but I’ve changed my mind. I now think this is leading to us going to war in Ukraine or Syria.
Judge Kavanaugh certainly laid into the Dems, media & Clints, quite an amazing and probably accurate description of his ‘soft assassination’
I wonder how the UK media will represent/misrepresent the hearing?
Hilary lost several years ago, (Robert Hannigan of GCHQ/Steele/Skripal immediately resigned, he got it) why haven’t the rest of the Donkeys got it?
because this isn’t just about politics; just because the democrats will benefit from it, at least in the short term, doesn’t address the issue of whether it happened.
did you like clarence thomas speech about being lynched, too?
“Robert Hannigan of GCHQ/Steele/Skripal immediately resigned, he got it”
You mention an important fact.
It has nevertheless not received the attention it deserves.
Craig’s right.
If you look at this picture https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/salisbury-novichok-attack-suspect-exposed-as-russian-special-forces-colonel-anatoliy-chepiga-btvg3ftp5 the guy looks about 6ft 2 or taller. Yet the guy shown on the cctv etc., looks like a much smaller, slimmer, and shorter figure.
We can all move on.
Spot on! I’m more convinced by the second photo in this article.
To me ears are quite different….on far left they seem bigger….where as on right face rhey are slimmer…..as a male petson gets older in particular…ears get larger….this is not reversible betya.
Jo – I agree that the ears are significant. I have suggested earlier that whoever ‘created’ photo one used the second picture as a template. It looks to me as if they also did a little of their own tweeking to get it to look natural and complete as per photo 3, but not very successfully. On photo 1 the outer line of the person’s left ear is too straight down to be natural and the lobe is too squared off, neither feature of which is consistent with the recent Boshirov picture.
Craig, I guess we will continue to disagree until there is evidence. You are wrong about Bellingcat’s methodology. You are being blinded by having seen 3 pictures in the first screen of Bellingcat’s expose. As with so many people, we should know that to convince people you are best to work with (1) video (2) photograph (3) text (4) text in other language.
Bellingcat didn’t go scour yearbooks. They went looking simply for a guy of about the same age, which they could push into the shoes of Boshirov. They superimposed a computer-generated younger picture, said it was taken from a passport they were able to retrieve. The rest was very easy.
I assume that with two days of Russian news footage we will know more in 2 days. Here’s what I am waiting for:
– more people who know Chepiga
– recent picture of the memorial of Rossokovsky. I think it will show that there are only 9 names
– confirmation that the website of the school was hacked.
All the other stuff is bollocks; it’s just filler, just blabla about what they were looking for etc. Because they haven’t given proof of the link between the younger picture and Chepiga.
They assumed rightly that everyone was going to get obsessed about the pictures. That hardly anyone reads Russian and questions the written texts and their flabby excuses.
You also fell for the trap.
The difference is explained not just by ageing but that he was in his early twenties. Try face recognition on your own face *at the same ages*. The features of his face are different because of the angle of the photo, some affine transformation in reproduction, parotid enlargement with age, and some sebaceous gland enlargement on his nose that is revealed by the shine in the most recent photos. Features one would not expect to change are retained. Proportions are no guide here because of potential affine distortion in the photo.
he did that, as the article states.
How did you learn to type without learning to read? Even passages especially emphasised for the obtuse?
“Naturally mainstream media journalists are tweeting and publishing the man’s evidence and leaving out the woman’s evidence. (…) But the Kommersant article gives them a bigger challenge. Kommersant is owned by close Putin political ally, Putin’s former student flatmate, Chariman of Gazprominvestholdings and the UK’s richest resident, Alisher Usmanov. That Russia’s most authoritative paper, with ownership very close to Putin, is printing such open and honest reporting rather belies the ‘Russia is a dictatorship’ narrative.”
It’s highly likely that both the man and the woman were spoken to beforehand by the FSB. That’s the real world.
Usmanov could well be a player in this. How did he feel about the Aeroflot versus Glushkov court case in which Glushkov was about to give oral evidence but got murdered instead? Factor in that Kommersant was previously owned by Berezovsky (whacked in Berkshire) and Patarkatsishvili (whacked in Surrey).
so you’re saying that fsb is pushing both sides of the story?
Yes.
Roll up. To the University of Buckingham, a private university and haunt of Zionist supporters, Glees, Alderman and Sebag Montefiore, to become a ‘spy’.
Seldon, the biographer of prime ministers and ex head of Wellington College is the vice chancellor and Tessa Keswick is the Chancellor. She comes from the wealthy Jardine Mathieson family. Thatcher elevated Buckingham college to university status influenced by the Institute of Economic Affairs.
They see a gap in the market! Two year degrees. £8k pa.
‘Just don’t tell the Russians: British university to start spy school
27 Sep, 2018 11:46
Becoming a British spy, and finding out who they are, is set to become a whole lot easier as one university is now offering degrees in international espionage.
The University of Buckingham is set to offer students the opportunity to attain an undergraduate degree in security, intelligence and cyberthreats. The course which will launch in January will be run by former government intelligence worker Julian Richards.
So less criticism of the state and it’s dubious method and more good-old-fashioned spycraft.
The course flies in the face of the traditional culture of the spying agencies where social connections and class often went further than ability or qualifications.
/
https://www.rt.com/uk/439605-spies-university-espionage-students/
All the connections are wealthy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Buckingham
I never heard of the University of Buckingham until today and have now seen two references to it in quick succession:
“But Professor Alan Smithers, of the Centre for Education and Employment Studies at Buckingham University, said: ‘The government is rowing back on its aim of attracting those with good degrees into teaching through generous bursaries.
‘Recruitment difficulties mean they have been extended to those with just 2.2s. It’s concerning because it highlights once more the sheer difficulty in getting high quality teachers.’ ”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6217101/Graduates-2-2-degrees-given-12-000-bribe-teach-subjects-including-music.html
Does it exist as a convenient source of “appeal to authority” arguments?
Ten years ago, Craig predicted the situation we’re in now:
– There Are No Good Guys, But We Must Be Most Wary of Russia
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2008/08/there_are_no_go/
You raise some excellent points, thanks. Whatever the truth, it seems an awful lot of credence is being placed on a supposed photographic resemblance, which may or may not be valid. Adorned with a lot of interesting detail about the alleged would-be assassin (which is not very relevant if he didn’t do it!). My gut feeling, to put it bluntly, is that Russia “did it”. But that’s not to say that these two individuals are the same person. It’s remarkable to me how the UK media basically immediately accepted this story as true – – and I’m definitely not a Putin supporter. I’m just sceptical.
Russia did not do it Paul. Their operatives are not clumsy but clinical. And never put the wider public at risk. It appears to be usually a garotting. The murders of Berezovsky and Glushkov (partners in screwing Russian small investors to spend ill-gotten gains in London) will never be solved. Our intelligence can only get to the bottom of incidents they themselves create. The Glushkov murder happened a week after the Skripal incident. No wonder they are trying to keep Abramovich out of the country!
The main difference between the alleged murder attempt on the Skripals and the successful murder attempt on Nikolai Glushkov is that the Skripal pantomime was planned months in advance whereas the Glushkov murder came as a big surprise. Think about this. Two days after the pantomime Theresa May stood up in parliament and blamed Russia. Likewise Boris Johnson. The scripting had already been done. I have no doubt our “intelligence” services will be working on some kind of script about Glushkov’s murder. In the light of Litvinenko’s alleged murder they are going to have problems with the Lugovoi connections to both.
There was a comment here about GCHQ chief Robert Hannigan.
It disappeared. Why so?
Dunno?, but surely the resignation of someone in January 2017 can’t have any connection to this continuing thread of stories , both Craig’s poking holes in Skripal narrative and yesterday’s Senate show, accurately analyzed here, of all places https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/09/28/kava-s28.html
And older background here, stuffed with much made-up stories, so many now overtaken by reality – it ties someone as flying in corroborating SIGINT to Brennan, shortly before resigning, for personal reasons!
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/12/christopher-steele-the-man-behind-the-trump-dossier
The personal position https://www.gchq.gov.uk/news-article/director-hannigan-gchq-step-down
An old trick used by intelligence agencies if they want to pass person A off as person B is to doctor composite photos with facial elements from photos of both A and B. The resulting composites will contain enough elements to resemble both A and B, thereby creating a somewhat believable gradation of AB-ness.
Precisely.
Jeremy Hunt and Sergei Lavrov had a meeting in New York today. The BBC report that Hunt told Lavrov it was “unacceptable” for Russia to carry out attacks using chemical weapons in Britain. No sh*t, Sherlock!
First, what does this mean? Does it mean “If you do it again, we will freeze the oligarchs’ London assets”? Does it mean “We’ll respond in Kaliningrad within a month and call it quits, OK.” Or perhaps it means “Naughty boy! (wink wink)”.
Second, what did Lavrov tell Hunt? Did he say “Look, do you want to win the next election or not?” Did he say “You invite us in as observers at the next Toxic Dagger. You got that, boy?” Or what?
Russia respond:
Putin has information that Skripal poisoning suspects Petrov and Boshirov are civilians – Kremlin
https://on.rt.com/9f8z
Craig, I caught a Newsdrive report on the propaganda output machine radio Scotland earlier, and they were positively gushing over this new finding, giggling away about how silly the Russians are etc. What caught my attention though, was that they were promoting Bellingcat: ‘have to give the blogger credit,,,, he really is very good,,, what an amazing researcher,,, ‘ (or words that effect) – what on earth makes this one blogger any better or worse than any other? BBC Scotland NEVER quotes bloggers, blogs are fake news as far as they are concerned,,,, except, suddenly, this one blog.
What a nonsense.
In the litmus test for verifying a report’s accuracy – that is, if radio Scotland says it’s true – we can be certain it is not, the added giggling always indicates a particularly heinous barefaced lie rather than just a distortion.
I’ll let you know if they ever report on your blog 🙂
I think Pictriev results we can rule out:
https://imgur.com/a/GOANF11
Whoops, I took higher resolution images for comparison and got totally different result:
https://imgur.com/a/vtEPcOF
My bad, folks.
There is only a limited amount of information you can get by comparing pictures which have been taken with different cameras (actually it is angle of vision of the lens that is important here).
A photo booth for example, because of the limited space, tends to have a camera with a wide angle lens so the subject can be nearer the camera. This introduces some noticeable effects on the picture. The nose tends to come forward and the ears tend to go back. This is simply to do with the fact that a 3 dimensional object (the subject’s head) is reproduced on a 2 dimensional sensor (or even film).
A narrow angle lens (longer focal length) is better for portraits because it minimises these strange effects described above, but means that the camera must be further away from the subject.
I would guess that the pictures in the original police report (with the identical backgrounds) were taken with a wide angle lens:
http://news.met.police.uk/news/counter-terrorism-police-release-images-of-two-suspects-in-connection-with-salisbury-attack-320534
These pictures of Col. Chepiga and Boshirov appear to have been taken with narrower angle lens which should introduce less distortion:
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/49B5/production/_103596881_4295c99b-9603-4272-9e02-4fd851718425.png
Here is an exaggerated comparison of the same subject with different lens types:
http://www.nicovandijk.net/TOGETHER.JPG
But, anyway, I am curious to see how this proceeds.
It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that Col. Chepiga (if he ever existed) looks, in real life, nothing like the picture which Bellingcat produced or obtained and may be different pictures emerge in due course from the Russian side. It may be that Col. Chepiga and Mr. Boshirov are indeed similar looking and we may see them both together at some time. It could also be that they are indeed the same person although, if that were the case, I fail to understand why he appeared on TV when it would have been clear there was a risk that his story would be exposed.
I did consider how yesterday how I thought the Russians may now react, since the ball is now in their court:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/09/the-incredible-case-of-boshirov-and-petrovs-visas/comment-page-4/#comment-788202
My guess is that Chepiga is already dead and that’s why his name is on the monument. Probably no family and a lifelong orphan type GRU agent thus safe that no one comes forward.
Same person, obviously. The left picture is before his head was clamped in a vice and tightened enough for his skull to narrow, which in turn would push his eyes closer and nose longer. Thus he would match the middle picture. The GRU does this all the time. The middle picture is taken after. QED
Over on the Bellingcat forum they’ve got that covered. It’s plastic surgery, obviously a soldier would be injured and need plastic surgery.
seems they have got more ingenious since they used those fairground distortion mirrors in Soviet times.
The crushed skull explains why he wandered around town after the murder attempt, instead of escaping from the crime scene.
Also, and unfortunately I haven’t got a link to support this, I heard and read earlier comments from (more than one) native Russian commentators saying that the way Boshirov and Petrov spoke indicated that they were of a low educational standard as they spoke with poor grammar and communication skills. They’re either very good actors or GRU standards, especially in positions of authority, are lower than one might expect (or they are suffering from ‘squashed brain syndrome’!).
the whole of Wednesday bbc was reporting the chepiga ID with utter certainty, as tho bellingcat was unimpeachable source.
by thurs, bbc was more circumspect. wonder why.
most press was equally uncritical, but bbc ought to know better
the police have not said it’s Chepiga but then how can the 250 police detectives investigating the case with all the resources at their disposal compete with a website called Bellingcat.
Putin’s spokesman sounded pretty defensive (on RT): ”Putin said they were civilians because he had been given this information”.
As if protecting – rather in vain, I suppose – his boss against future ridicule etc.
(Not something the spokesman would bother to insist on if they finally had established the civilian status of the two guys as a fact).
What happened is most likely that Putin’s staff were given the information from some lower instance, and by people who were hoping that the truth would not be revealed. Putin’s tone of confidence at the press conference will tell any good observer of human behavior – or people experienced in political behavior – that he believed in what he said, at the time. (Why should he else send them before the TV cameras to embarrass themselves and everybody?). He must now feel betrayed, and is probably furious.
What he eventually found out later about P&B we do not know (yet). Except perhaps that one or more of the two guys had a non-civilian background…
A very a normal reaction when a person is confronted with unusual for him/her objectivity. (so you shouldn’t need to worry too much).