Recently, the occupiers’ propaganda announced the alleged arrival in Crimea of ”journalists from the United States, Brazil, Venezuela, Indonesia, Italy, Pakistan, Serbia, Slovenia, and Turkey,” who were given photo ops against the backdrop of the local “authorities,” including Sergei Aksyonov and (separately) Vladimir Konstantinov
with his current “parliamentary group,” Sergei Tsekov, Efim Fiks, Anastasia Gridchina, and so on.
Despite the pomp of the “meeting with the press,” the occupiers decided to “highlight” a small group of “journalists,” some of whom turned out to be classic nobodies, previously “famous” only for their propaganda visits to Russia and the mainland Russia-occupied Ukrainian territories.
There is simply no information about the “journalistic work” of such figures as “Brazilian blogger” Caio Bastos Barroso or “Italian journalist” Daniel Del Orco in their “countries of residence.”
However, more “venerable” Russian intelligence agents have also been brought to the occupied peninsula, such as American Christopher Helali, Kyiv-born Oleg Yasinsky, who resides in Chile, and Turk Mert Sagit.
Helali began his career in the Boston branch of the anarchist Industrial Workers of the World, from which he was expelled in disgrace in 2016 after being accused of embezzling $4,500 from the organization. Then, in 2019, he became embroiled in a scandal involving child support failures and denial of paternity of his partner Zipporah Legarde’s child.
This colorful character later resurfaced as the International secretary of the of the Party of Communists USA, but in 2024, he defected to the more marginal American Communist Party, which was more closely controlled by Russian intelligence, taking up the same position.
As for the “traveler and blogger” Sagit, claimed by the occupiers to be the “editor of one of Turkey’s largest print media,” he has in recent years appeared in the marginal newspaper Aydınlık.
This outlet serves the equally marginal pro-Russian “Vatan” party, whose longtime leader, 80-year-old Doğu Perinçek, was implicated in the Ergenekon coup plot and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2013. He was later amnestied by the Turkish authorities.
Yasinsky, recruited by Russian intelligence thirty years ago in Kyiv, was named by the US State Department in November 2023 as an active participant in a Russian network for the covert dissemination of disinformation and pro-Russian narratives in Latin America, through the Russian-controlled companies “Agency for Social Design” and “Structure.”
To import these “journalists,” Russian intelligence agencies used the “federal publication” “Vashi Novosti” and the “Foreign Journalists for Russia” project, whose permanent leader, Ivan Andreyev, three years ago openly stated the goals his handlers had set for European civilization: “behead, p..ss on, and burn.”
It is clear that the “urine therapy sessions” in “applied ophthalmology” conducted by Russian intelligence agencies in the occupied territories will continue, despite the tragicomic “results” described above.
