Ukraine fakes commander's death to trick Russia into paying $500k bounty

55 pointsposted 10 hours ago
by cwwc
(telegraph.co.uk)

28 Comments

euroderf

6 hours ago

I hope there's gonna be an intel history of this war published. SIGINT, HUMINT, it's gonna all be fascinating.

user

4 hours ago

[deleted]

netsharc

5 hours ago

While writing the question "So, how did the money exchange hands?" I came up with a hypothesis: I guess the Russian regime have offshore accounts and would've transferred the amount to another foreign account they assume to belong to the killer, but actually is ultimately controlled by the Ukrainian authorities.

If the money stayed in the Russian banking system, I can imagine they could've seized the recipient account, and transferring such a large amount out of the country would be difficult (although it's peanuts in the world of dark finances)

drysine

5 hours ago

Why not say Russia paid $5000k? It's not like they offered any proof.

Meanwhile, I find it is quite telling that the Telegraph paints him as "one of the most prominent anti-Putin Russians fighting on behalf of Ukraine" and quotes him saying “We fight to change something in Russia. When the war ends, I will continue fighting until Putin falls,” while completely failing to mention what he is fighting for.

His nickname "White Rex" might give a clue, though.

Here is how a Reuters article describes him:

"The RVC was founded by Moscow-born Denis Kapustin, also known as Denis Nikitin or by the nom de guerre White Rex. The Antifascist Europe monitoring project says he is a neo-Nazi and white supremacist.

Nikitin, who declined to be interviewed for this article, has frequently described himself as a nationalist fighting for a Russia that belongs to ethnic Russians" [0]

He used to live in Europe and before the war Germans had something to say about him too:

"The interior ministry of Herbert Reul (CDU) in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, called him "one of the most influential neo-Nazi activists" in Germany, and noted that he professionalized the fighting subculture in the country."[1]

That's the kind of Russians that chooses to fight along with current Ukrainian regime and gets glorified by Western media.

It fills me with disgust how Western propaganda works.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/how-russians-end-up-far...

[1] https://www.bfmtv.com/international/asie/russie/guerre-en-uk...

computerfriend

4 hours ago

> completely failing to mention what he is fighting for.

Not so.

> Denis Kapustin, a far-Right extremist and former football hooligan, ...

> Since 2019, he has been banned from entering the Schengen Area for promoting neo-Nazi ideology.

from the article.

drysine

3 hours ago

Oops, not completely then.

I scrolled through the irrelevant section "Outsmarting Russians" devoted to the events that has been reported on many times before, but they buried two paragraphs about this "commander" being a Nazi there. I don't think many people would read through this haystack of already known events in search of the needle they don't even know is there.

"The drones had been smuggled into Russia and assembled, and launched from trucks deep within Russian territory, in another huge victory for Ukraine’s spies.

Ukraine’s latest intelligence success means Denis Kapustin, a far-Right extremist and former football hooligan, is inside Ukrainian territory and “preparing to continue carrying out assigned tasks”, said a Ukrainian commander.

The commander’s family moved from Moscow to Germany when Mr Kapustin was 17 and he relocated to Ukraine in 2017.

Since 2019, he has been banned from entering the Schengen Area for promoting neo-Nazi ideology."

Quite abrupt switch of topic, don't you think? It's like the editor cut and pasted these paragraphs from more prominent place to the place which 90% of readers won't read. It's not the first time I see this dark pattern in Western media.

halJordan

an hour ago

So if the section that's irrelevant is the one with your "concerns" then why on earth are we expected to care about the thing you are calling irrelevant.

drysine

37 minutes ago

>with your "concerns"

Aren't you concerned that Ukrainian regime employs a neo-Nazi as a commander while Western media touts him as "one of the most prominent anti-Putin Russians fighting on behalf of Ukraine"? Not even a tiny bit?

SuperNinKenDo

4 hours ago

Please actually read TFA before commenting in this way.

drysine

3 hours ago

I read the article like the 90% of readers read it.

“But the plans were on display…”

“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”

“That’s the display department.”

“With a flashlight.”

“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”

“So had the stairs.”

“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”

Argonaut998

5 hours ago

Ukraine are not doing themselves any favours with antics like this.

user

5 hours ago

[deleted]

fractallyte

2 hours ago

Nonsense. They're making russians look stupid – and by extension, Putin too.

russians only respect a strong, domineering leader. Putin looking weak will only hasten his downfall.

And that $500k payout is the icing on the cake.

elephantum

9 hours ago

Making this case public should drop a shadow of doubt onto other Ukraine statements

Probably it would be wiser not to brag about this one

phoe-krk

6 hours ago

"If you offer to pay people to kill our people, we will do our best to make you lose this money" is IMO a pretty fair statement when published. Not only it calls the bluff of depending on mercenaries performing the Russian war machine duties, it might discourage them from doing that in the future, since the Ukrainian side is now going to use that money in defense while paying only the costs of their own covert operation.

ChrisMarshallNY

6 hours ago

Knowing how the Russians operate, they might decide to take the money back in skin.

They do tend to be pretty vindictive.

But it is kind of a funny concept, which is sort of an anodyne for an otherwise, really horrible situation. The Ukraine war is experiencing WWI-level casualties.

phoe-krk

6 hours ago

> Knowing how the Russians operate, they might decide to take the money back in skin.

>They do tend to be pretty vindictive.

I don't think it's any more risky for the Ukrainian military. They've already collectively been on Russia's wanted list for years and it's not like the country might get invaded by the Russian army any harder since it would have already happened long ago.

ChrisMarshallNY

6 hours ago

Good point. I was thinking of the individuals, as opposed to the institutions. The big guys will be protected, but the delivery people and analysts won’t be, on the Russian side, and the lower-level folks on the Ukrainian side could be selected for extra attention.

peterpost2

7 hours ago

All is fair in love and war.

Seems good to have the russia rethink their system of paying for assasinations.