When lying becomes a profession or Why Grozev hates Russia?

Details: Geopolitics; 18 March 2023

We are witnessing a frequent orchestrated anti-Russian campaign that went beyond all limits of reality, as well as the persecution of all individuals whose opinion deviates from the established narrative of the mainstream media. Many independent intellectuals are under the attack of fierce propaganda for expressing their own views, which have led them to various blacklists and being exposed to constant threats.

Quite openly and unconcealed, the West, led by the United States of America, is waging a hybrid war against Russia in order to prevent the spread of its influence. This war is being waged on the battlefield as well as politically, culturally, spiritually and informationally. Numerous media controlled by Western power centers have been used as a weapon for years, not only against Russia, but against all countries, peoples, individuals who want to preserve their independence and sovereignty, their value system and who do not fit into the Western-centric world order.

Although America claims to be chosen as the leader of democracy and freedom, the facts do not support such claims. In fact, 90% of the media in the United States is controlled by just six companies: News Corp, Time Warner, Sony, Comcast, Viacom and Disney.

Thirty years ago, this media space was controlled by about fifty companies. The aforementioned giant companies control the media in Europe, as well as on other continents, and their annual revenues individually amount to tens of billions of dollars. These six companies control about 70% of cable television, numerous radio stations, as well as printed newspapers around the world.

One of the leading American intellectuals, Noam Chomsky, states that “major American media organizations zealously repeat like parrots what United States officials want the public to know about global issues. According to his claims for the US authorities, any media that "does not repeat the American propaganda system is inadmissible".

It is necessary to mention the numerous non-governmental organizations around the world that receive millions of dollars from the budget of the United States of America. What is paradoxical is that these organizations are called "non-governmental" even though many of them receive money from the US government and other Western governments.

American journalist William Blum says in this regard that: the US government finances non-governmental organizations around the world to force the governments of those countries to do what the US wants.

In December 2022, the The Inspectorate of the US State Department has published a report on its “Countering Russian Influence Fund” stating that the U.S. has spent more than $1 billion since 2017 to fund NGOs, media, and other organizations and programs that oppose the Russian influence.

In the report published on the website of the State Department, it is stated that the largest part of these funds - 621.5 million dollars - was allocated for financing of organizations and programs in Eastern Europe, for the countries of the Visegrad Group, which include Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland, and 454 million dollars for the Balkan countries.

According to the data from the Report, 55.5 million dollars were earmarked for organizations in Serbia, and 61.1 million dollars for those located in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija.

The USA has decided slightly more than 80 million dollars for Bosnia and Herzegovina, 67.4 million dollars for North Macedonia, 50 million dollars for Montenegro.

47.7 million was allocated for Bulgaria, 40.3 million for Slovenia, 39 million for Albania, 11.4 million for Croatia, and 0.7 million for Greece, according to the Report.

The Fund's programs are aimed at combating Russia's alleged "malignant" influence.

Apart from the USA, Great Britain also finances the anti-Russian campaign and makes numerous accusations about the alleged involvement of Russia and Russian services in various cases.

In the following shows, we will investigate which organizations in South-Eastern Europe have connections with American funds and what kind of propaganda they engage in.

A personality from the Balkans who has been attracting a lot of mainstream media attention in recent years, mostly with his anti-Russian statements, a Bulgarian citizen Hristo Grozev who presents himself as a journalist, media expert and investigator. Judging by his appearances, he could present himself as an expert closely specialized in Russian espionage. Namely, in recent years he has actively "investigated" Russia's involvement in numerous cases since the alleged coup d'état in Montenegro, through the Malaysian plane, Skripal, Khangoshvili and Navalny.

Hristo Grozev is the author of the Bellingcat internet publication, which was founded in 2014 in Great Britain. This publication was founded by a British citizen, blogger Elliot Higgins, who analyzes information from open and accessible sources. From the beginning, the publication dealt with the analysis of conflicts, so at that time Higgins researched video materials from the war zone in Syria and came to the conclusion that the leadership of Syria is using cluster bombs and chemical weapons against its own citizens. But the basic question is how precisely can a blogger who is thousands of kilometers away from a war zone conclude what is happening on the ground? Especially if we know that in modern conditions editing videos or processing photos do not pose any problem.

Of course, it is necessary to clarify how Bellingcat is financed. According to Higgins, half of the finances of this edition come from grants and donations, and the other half from fees for seminars and analysis of information from open sources. According to Bellingcat's official data, among the organizations from which they receive grants are the Dutch Adesium Foundation, the famous American National Endowment for Democracy, the Danish National Postal Lottery, the companies Zandstorm and Stichting Saxum Volutum, as well as the British Sigrid Rausing Foundation.

The publication also received funding from billionaire George Soros' Open Society Foundations.

What is interesting from Hristo Grozev's biography is that he graduated from a private American college, American University in Bulgaria. It is worth saying a few words about the university itself. The American University in Bulgaria, which Grozev graduated from, became the first private university in Eastern Europe. This University was founded in 1991 and implemented the traditional American model of liberal arts in education. Students from Bulgaria, Romania, North Macedonia, Serbia, Albania, Ukraine, Mongolia, Georgia, Moldova, Russia, Kazakhstan, Spain and the USA studied there in small groups. 80% of Americans taught there, and students dreamed of continuing their studies and careers abroad. It was emphasized that the university had no income of its own, because it was not sponsored by tuition fees from students - anyway, few people in Eastern Europe at that time could pay 7.5 thousand dollars a year, but by the American Agency for International Development and the Soros Foundation. George Soros was personally a member of the university's Board of Directors.

During his studies, Grozev worked at Radio Free Europe in Bulgarian language. Almost immediately after graduating from college in 1995, the future media mogul Grozev founded his own radio station in Bulgaria, and then launched Russian radio stations such as Radio Nika in Sochi, Channel Melody and Eldoradio in St. Petersburg. He also worked on media projects in the Baltic states, Finland, Bulgaria and Hungary. His career developed rapidly, but the main question is where Grozev got such a great potential. Actually behind the radio stations that he founded, there was a rich man from the USA named John Kluge. His biography is no less interesting. Kluge is a German born in 1914.

During World War II, he served in US military intelligence and interrogated his former compatriots. The data was used for the final stage of a special operation by the US special services called "Paperclip", the purpose of which was to export German scientists to the United States and use their knowledge against the USSR. Among them were German military intelligence chief Reinhard Gehlen, rocket scientist Werner von Braun, and infrared vision device inventor Heinz Schlicke. From 1942 to 1946, military intelligence investigators, including Kluge, questioned over 3,400 prisoners, over 500 of whom were scientists. During the interrogation, the Americans received valuable information about the achievements of Germany in the field of rocket technology, jet technology, weapon systems and acoustic torpedoes.

As soon as the war ended, Kluge bought his first radio station in the United States.

In 1995, Kluge began serially opening radio stations in the post-Soviet area and in Eastern Europe. Russia, the Baltic states, Hungary, Finland, Bulgaria - wherever statehood lay in ruins, the American billionaire and his corporation Metromedia International entered. All these assets were led by the young Grozev.

When the vertical of power was established in Russia, Grozev was forced to sell all his media projects in this country in 2006, and then invested in various media assets, mainly in the Netherlands and Bulgaria.

In addition to Kluga, it is necessary to mention another man who stands behind Grozev and his media projects, and that is the grandson of the last emperor of Austria-Hungary and the potential heir to the throne of Austria, Carl von Habsburg, who advocates the creation of an armed force of the European Union and mentions Russia, China and Serbia as the biggest threat.

In the mid-2000s, Hristo Grozev started investing in radio stations around the world, buying and reselling assets in different countries. He received the funds for this activity from his business partner, the grandson of the last emperor of Austria-Hungary and the head of the House of Habsburg. Some openly refer to Grozev as Habsburg's "financial advisor" advising him on the acquisition of media assets.

Karl von Hasburg and Grozev quickly found a common language, considering that Grozev has always been very enthusiastic about the fight against Russia, where he once started a media business together with Metromedia International. According to Grozev himself, his goal is to maintain freedom of speech and to fight against the "militarization" of information. In fact, through his media, he distributes anti-Russian, sometimes frankly false, information, as his network has grown to the extent that it allows him to broadcast anything to tens of millions of viewers, readers and listeners around the world.

Habsburg, on the advice of Grozev, invested about 3 million in the Ukrainian "Gala radio", which was pathetically called "EU radio", and completely canceled the music in the Russian language, so as not to promote the "country of the aggressor". In 2015, in an interview with a Ukrainian publication, Karl Habsburg recalled: "The Habsburg Empire included only a part of Ukraine, but we consider your country absolutely integral and European, and we will gladly contribute to your integration into the EU."

It is interesting that in Ukraine, especially in the West, despite the hatred towards Russia and its "imperial ambitions", there are still many supporters of the good old Austria-Hungary. On Facebook, you can find a photo of the director of the "Fund for the Protection and Development of the Habsburg Heritage" and the former head of dep in the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine Oleg Havych, who is a supporter of the secession of Western Ukraine, together with Karl Habsburg and Hristo Grozev, under which enthusiastic readers seriously write that "Galicia awaits the return of its emperor".

As for Grozev himself, he found his calling in the fight against Russia. Since 2014, he has constantly promoted the idea of a Russian military invasion of Ukraine through personal blogs and media he controls, publishing fake videos with "Russian soldiers" in Donbass. Then he started working with Bellingcat where he mainly presented "evidence" that Russia shot down MH17 of Malaysia Airlines. The second major project is a media campaign against Russia, presenting the Kremlin as the organizer of the "coup attempt in Montenegro, for which the Appellate Court in Montenegro overturned the verdict on all counts of the indictment as an epilogue. Let's remember that this fabricated case served the corrupt Milo Djukanovic for self-promotion, in the hope that the alleged coup attempt would raise his ratings in the elections. Grozev is also trying to prove that protest rallies in Europe against the military actions of Ukrainian extremists against the civilian population are also organized by the "hand of the Kremlin".

But let's stick to the "evidence". Grozev claims that he bases his analyzes on information from open and accessible sources. At the same time, he claims that the Russian intelligence services are behind numerous actions, and he is particularly averse to the GRU. So, the logical question arises, where is the information about the activities of any intelligence service available to everyone?

At the same time, Grozev presents data such as phone listings, lists of passengers in air traffic, databases of various departments. Grozev himself admits in the stream that some of the data was obtained through corruption. Aren't such activities called espionage? In this case, if he actually was in touch with someone leaking the information from the Russian authorities which he then uses to interpret and mix up with fake claims, we will probably see something coming out. And the destiny of Grozev’s collaborators probably wouldn’t be good: end of their career and public life, and highly likely jail, and zero chances for any support from Grozev and his patrons. We have already seen it happening in Navalny case with Kirill Chuprov, Alexei Borisov and Konstantin Golubev, when they were simply ditched.

We asked a certain award-winning Bulgarian journalist, Mrs. Velislava Dureva from Plovdiv, what her opinion was about Hristo Grozeva's investigative journalism. Mrs. Dureva graduated in journalism from the State University in Sofia and has extensive experience in television work, documentary films, in the field of international politics, culture and others. She has published over two thousand newspaper publications, interviews, analyzes and commentaries on current and important topics. She is the winner of the award of the Association of Journalists of Bulgaria. So let's hear it.

“You ask what is the position of Bulgarian journalists regarding the activities of Hrista Grozev. Of course, it is different. Some praise him for thinking he is another Julian Assange, which he is not. It is clear to others that in essence we are not dealing with a journalist, especially one who deals with investigative journalism. It would rather be said that before us is a man who deals with business, related to the media, investments, and most importantly, who serves other people's interests. It's not a secret for anyone.

I do not know the legislation of the Russian Federation, but I was surprised when I realized that some time ago as a representative of Metromedia (it is an American media company) Hristo Grozev managed to create a whole chain of radio stations in the Russian Federation itself. He opened special radio stations in the Baltic countries, Ireland, and Ukraine. But the most important and interesting area of his activity is the Belingcat site.

Belingcat is interesting because of who is behind the site and who funds it. According to official data, Belingcat receives funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, which was established by the US Congress, from the Open Society Fund and from some other similar organizations.

I would like to turn the spotlight on the National Endowment for Democracy. It was formed in 1983, during the time of Ronald Reagan. It was formed as a cover for the activities of the CIA, so that it could "wrap" itself in some kind of acceptable cover for its activities, which usually involves the organization of coups. The goal of the formation of this organization, according to the head Carl Gershman, is that people would not think that organizations for the support of democracy receive support only from the CIA.

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Immediately after the formation of the fund in the USA, two more institutes of the Democratic and Republican parties were created, which are the basis for inspiring and financing the well-known series of color revolutions, and in fact coups.

The role of Bellingcat is evaluated very highly by the representatives of the CIA themselves. I even noted somewhere that for the Foreign Policy, Belingcat is the most valuable thing for the US intelligence services, because his research does not require any additional interference from the official US intelligence services, it is difficult to refute and, as the Foreign Policy says, it is difficult for Russia to avoid responsibility. The advantage of BellingGrozev claims that GRU agents poisoned the Skripals. Then that GRU agents poisoned Bulgarian businessman Emilian Gebrev. "Poisoned with the deadly Novichok, Gebrev calmly left the hospital, and nothing but banal pesticides were found in his analyses. Yes, there is also Navalny, who, according to Grozev and other Western media, was also poisoned with Novichok. However, at the official request of the Russian authorities to Germany to establish the facts together, Germany refused to cooperate. Is it because there is no evidence of Russian involvement? In one of the last interviews, entitled "How Russian intelligence sent bombs to Europe", the presenter very suggestively asks Grozev a question at the beginning: Is it news to you that Russia is likely using the GRU to coordinate nationalist and ultra-right groups for psychological attacks in Europe, is it actually about Spain? To which he replies that this is nothing new and that Russia is not doing it to overthrow the government but because of security destabilization in Europe. According to Grozev, the GRU has been doing this since 2015, especially using the situation with covid, that is, the tension between citizens due to the pandemic. So, according to Grozev, the Russian intelligence service GRU incited protests against the measures that were introduced due to the pandemic, and that has nothing to do with the fact that the citizens are authentically revolted. In the interview, Grozev further analyzes how many people from GRU structures take part in such actions and states that they cannot travel now, so they use less trained people who use local groups. But again we return to the question where is the evidence for such claims? They don't exist. The same irrational logic applies to the staments made by Grozev about the unit 29355 of the GRU that was used for operations for over than 15 years: if that was the case and, as he claims, it is easy to hack the data about it, why wasn’t anyone mentioning it before? All of a sudden, when he needs to build the narrative, he comes up with some numbers, background, history that is not backed by hard facts, but serves to create an impression that he knows what he is talking about. cat is that it is not necessary to have sources in your own government and no debates are required of you. So Belingcat mostly does work for foreign intelligence.

But I also want to ask. If a man considers himself a journalist, especially a researcher, why doesn't Hristo Grozev investigate the explosions on the North Stream, doesn't he investigate all that terror against the people of Donbas that lasted for eight years - terror, robberies, murders? Why doesn't he investigate the massive, monstrous crime of neo-Nazis in Ukraine who burned 50 people alive in the House of Trade Unions in Odessa on May 2, 2014. That is probably the task of an investigative journalist. Everything else is empty talk“.

This clearly contrived scenario is used as a template on all occasions, wherever there are protests that are not to the liking of the Western power centers. This suggests that it is a manipulation that should serve to discredit any authentic protest of citizens, and at the same time to discredit Russia. Very original.

As a conclusion, we can say that throughout his career, Grozev has been connected to American sources of funding through non-governmental organizations and funds, including the Soros Fund. However, in addition, there are claims that the purchase of radio stations in the territory of the former USSR and in South-Eastern Europe is actually a project of the American intelligence agency CIA. Namely, beginning in the 1950s, the CIA intensively bought radio stations in all countries of interest to the intelligence service, and also started its own. "Voice of Liberation" in Guatemala, "Radio Marti" broadcast in Cuba, "Radio Free Afghanistan"... There were dozens of similar stations around the world, not counting the fully official Voice of America and Radio Free Europe.

Events usually followed the same pattern. First, the CIA starts a radio station - in the absence of the Internet in a poor country, this is the main source of information. Hired propagandists criticize governments (usually socialist), spread wild rumors and agitate for rebel forces.

On the other hand, Bellingcat is linked to the British intelligence service, and it is recorded that the name of George Soros is among the financiers. As a confirmation of the suspicions that this structure is connected with the Western intelligence services, the activities of Grozev and Bellingcat were frankly praised by the former head of the CIA's European and Eurasian operations Mark Polimeropolis: "I don't want to be too grandiose, but we like it." Bellingcat allows itself to say what US intelligence cannot say,' noted the authoritative publication The Foreign Affairs. "Open-source investigations allow officials and lawyers to discuss Russian machinations without disclosing the sources and methods of U.S. intelligence."

The bottom line is that Grozev, under the platform of allegedly preventing disinformation, is actually spreading disinformation in the media space.

For this reason, if someone accuses you of being a Russian spy or of attempting a coup, poisoning, etc. and you have nothing to do with it, check whether the American or British intelligence services, the Soros Fund, Habsburg and the like are not hiding behind it.

The bottom line is that Grozev, under the slogan of supposedly preventing disinformation, is actually spreading disinformation in the media space.

For this reason, if someone accuses you of being a Russian spy or of attempting a coup d'état, poisoning, etc., and you have nothing to do with it, check if the American or British intelligence agencies are not The Soros Foundation, the Habsburgs and the like are not hiding behind this.