From left to right, top row: Nikolay Korchagin; Aleksey Lukashev; Aleksandr Osadchuk; and Artem Malyshev. Bottom row: Vladislav Borokov; Yevgeniy Serebriakov; Anatoliy Kovalev; and Ivan Yermakov.
A string of Russian spies and their units have been exposed by Britain’s security services over their years-long campaign of cyber hacking, arson, and sabotage.
Spies who targeted the daughter of the former double agent Sergei Skripal, five years before both were nearly killed in the Salisbury novichok incident, are among 18 Russian military intelligence officers who have been sanctioned.
Others have been unmasked for a “sustained campaign of malicious cyber activity”, covert bombings and arson attacks in Britain and Europe, in an effort to destabilise the West and try to derail support for Ukraine.
David Lammy, the foreign secretary, said: “GRU spies are running a campaign to destabilise Europe, undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty and threaten the safety of British citizens.” He added that Russia had also targeted media outlets, telecommunications providers, energy infrastructure and political and democratic institutions.
This month three men were convicted over an arson attack on a Ukrainian-linked business in London, which police said was carried out at the behest of the Wagner mercenary group.
Other sanctioned individuals include Aleksandr Vladimirovich Osadchuk, a GRU colonel accused by the FBI of masterminding cyber-operations, including targeting the 2016 US presidential election.
Aleksey Lukashev (L) and Ivan Yermakov (R).
Russia will continue its vigorous espionage and sabotage campaign against the West in an effort to derail support for Ukraine during its desperate struggle to defeat them. While the Trumpf junta has naturally de-prioritized counterintelligence operations against the Kremlin, Canada, NATO, and EU intelligence agencies have increased their efforts. The UK is lucky to have an incredibly talented and experienced new Director-General of MI6, Blaise Florence Metreweli CMG and MI5 Director-General Sir Kenneth Douglas McCallum KCB, unlike the US national security team purposefully saddled by inexperienced nincompoops and sycophants Tulsi Gabbard, John Ratcliffe,
Kashyap Pramod Patel, and Pete Hegseth.
Director-General of MI6, Blaise Florence Metreweli CMG
Sir Kenneth Douglas McCallum KCB
Sources:
Archived link: UK sanctions Russian spies over ‘malicious activity’
Colombia: Russian Spy Arrested
Colombian police arrest Jesús Ramos Santos, a 21-year-old suspected of espionage and planning a terrorist attack in Lithuania on behalf of Russia. (Source: X)
Colombian authorities have detained 21-year-old Jesús Ramos Santos, wanted by Lithuania on charges of espionage and alleged involvement in a terrorist plot linked to Russia’s war against Ukraine. He was arrested in the city of Barranquilla, the Colombian National Police confirmed.
Lithuanian prosecutors allege that Ramos Santos was spying on UAB TVC Solutions, a Lithuanian company involved in supplying drones to Ukraine as part of its defense against Russia’s full-scale invasion. He is also suspected of planning a terrorist act in the city of Šiauliai, where a key NATO air base is located.
The arrest operation took place on 6 July:
“This individual created a group whose aim was to carry out terrorist acts in Europe through arson and was engaged in espionage targeting a company supplying drones to Ukraine,” said Colombia’s National Police Director, Carlos Fernando Triana Beltrán.
He confirmed that Ramos Santos is subject to extradition.
Although initially reported as a Colombian citizen, investigative outlet Agentstvo revealed that Ramos Santos grew up in St. Petersburg and holds Russian citizenship. His mother confirmed that he had traveled to Lithuania in September 2024—the timeframe during which Lithuanian authorities believe he conducted espionage activities on behalf of Russian interests.
As noted previously on Coriolanus, Colombia’s security services are manned by a body of experienced professionals, having dealt with the FARC, ELN, and drug cartels. Colombian military veterans have joined Ukraine’s Foreign Legion, and sadly some of them have joined Mexico’s drug cartels. Russia’s espionage network is deeply entwined in Mexico and South America. Brazil was used as a ‘passport factory’ by Russian intelligence and their operatives have enjoyed a wide degree of latitude in Mexico which does not prioritize them as an espionage threat the way the US used to and the way Canada still does.
Sources:
Back to the Cold War: Russia uses Mexico as a hub for spying on the U.S.
Spain Awards Wiretap Contract to Chinese Company Huawei
In 2021 the Canadian RCMP arrested Huawei Executive Meng Wanzhou on charges of fraud and circumnavigating sanctions on Iran. (Photo: CBS News)
The Spanish government is using Huawei to manage and store judicially authorized wiretaps in the country used by both law enforcement and intelligence services, despite concerns about how the Chinese government could compel Huawei to assist Beijing with its own intelligence activities.
The Ministry of the Interior officially awarded Huawei a €12.3 million ($14.3 million) contract following a standard public procurement process, as first reported by Spanish digital newspaper The Objective. Huawei had already been contracted to provide technical support to SITEL (Sistema Integrado de Interceptación Legal de las Telecomunicaciones), Spain’s integrated system for intercepting telecommunications.
While the contract for storing wiretaps requires Huawei to comply with cybersecurity guidelines set by the Spain’s National Cryptologic Center. There is “growing unrest” in the National Police and Guardia Civil over the Chinese company’s involvement with sensitive systems.
Concerns about Huawei have seen the company restricted from 5G networks across the EU, as well as varying levels of bans in networks of NATO allies such as the US and UK.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has been among the EU’s most supportive leaders regarding Huawei, and has pushed back against the bloc’s efforts to restrict it from 5G networks. Huawei has opened research facilities in Madrid and is a major employer as a technology contractor for a number of public administrations.
Natasha Buckley, a researcher at RUSI and lecturer in cybersecurity at Cranfield University, stated that Spain’s approach to the company stood in stark contrast to that of other NATO allies and many EU member states.
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei) and a number of non-US affiliates have been placed on the Entity List, in order to further address the continuing threat to US national security and foreign policy interests posed by Huawei and its non-US affiliates.
This is a remarkably poor decision by the Spanish government. The Ministry of State Security (MSS) uses the ‘thousand grains of sand’ approach to collecting tiny bits of intelligence to construct a rich mosaic for decision-makers in Beijing. China has successfully welded their tremendous industrial capacity with their national security strategy. There is a wide body of evidence incriminating Huawei as an extension of Chinese intelligence. Using hidden cookies and backdoor codes, the MSS can penetrate Western cyber-infrastructure to collect information as well as be able to shut down civilian or military electronic devices linked in by the “IOT” (AKA the “Internet of Things”).
China has built a capable large army of cyber operators.
Links:
Security, complexity and Huawei; protecting the UK’s… – NCSC.GOV.UK
Extradition case of Meng Wanzhou – Wikipedia
huawei-zte investigative report (final).pdf
Donald Trumpf’s Sep 2025 UK Visit Timed So He Can’t Address Parliament
The blimp was an eye-catching part of the protests against Trumpf’s state visit in 2019. (Getty Images)
In mid-September, US President Donald Trumpf will be visiting the UK and meeting with British officials. But one thing he won’t be doing on his trip is addressing Parliament.
“The date of the US president’s trip is being deliberately timed for mid-September when there is a parliamentary recess, handing the UK an excuse for not offering the speech. Mr. Trumpf is also expected not to visit Buckingham Palace or enjoy a ceremonial carriage ride down the Mall in London — features of many past state visits from world leaders.”
Earlier this year, Trumpf met with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer during his visit to the US. The Labor government under Starmer have concerns that Labor MPs could protest a joint address to Parliament, possibly by staying away en masse, causing potential embarrassment to Mr. Trumpf.
“It means the US president will not achieve something enjoyed by his predecessors Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama,” the Telegraph reporters note. “The lack of an address to Parliament risks a backlash from Mr. Trumpf, who British officials privately acknowledge is sensitive to perceived slights.”
French President Emmanuel Macron, they observe, addressed the UK Parliament when he was in London in early July.
“British officials involved in the state visit planning are keenly aware of the US president’s desire to beat his presidential predecessors in the scale and opulence of the events,” according to Riley-Smith and Furness. “There are discussions about how to outdo his first state visit in 2019.”
The reporters add, “Mr. Trumpf will become the first elected leader in modern times to enjoy two UK state visits — a fact he has been sharing privately with friends.”
Samaritans Visited Trumpf’s Scotland Golf Resort Earlier This Year
Drone footage shows Trump’s Turnberry resort clubhouse splattered with red paint. Two volunteers were reportedly charged for voicing their disapproval against Dummkopf Trumpf’s. (Images: Hassan Ghani via Reuters)
“There, there Mr. President. You’ll get to address Parliament another time.”
Source:
56 Years Ago Today on 20 July 1969: “One Small Step for [a Man], One Giant Leap for Mankind.”
US Astronaut Neil Armstrong about to step on the Moon. (Photo: NASA)
The US flag is wired to give the appearance of fluttering on the airless Moon (Photo: NASA)
Left to right: Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin
Some Historical Background You May Be Unaware Of
P-51C Mustang fighter flown by the Tuskegee Airmen. (Photo: USAF)
President John F. Kennedy, a World War Two veteran, wanted to link America’s space race with the growing civil rights movement. To that end, President Kennedy instructed NASA to recruit and train qualified pilots from the minority community to become astronauts. African-American pilots had served with great distinction in the Second World War. During the Second World War, the Tuskegee Airmen purposefully painted the tails of their fighter aircraft red to show the Nazis who they were and they were unafraid. African-American pilots also served their country valiantly during the Korean War, like this aviator below.
Jesse L. Brown the first African-American naval officer killed in the Korean War, and a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross.
This Man Should Have Been America’s First Black Astronaut
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USAF Captain Ed Dwight, Jr. (Photo: USAF)
In 1961, at the direction of President John F. Kennedy, USAF Captain Ed Dwight, Junior became the first African-American to enter the USAF training program from which NASA selected astronauts. Although he completed training at the Aerospace Research Pilot School in 1963 and advanced to the second round of the program, he was controversially not selected for the Astronaut Corps.
Look at the camaraderie evident between these astronaut trainees. (Photo: USAF)
The man responsible for Captain Dwight’s disqualification was none other than USAF Chuck Yeager, the man who first broke the sound barrier on 14 Oct 1947. A racist from West Virginia, General Yeager covertly countermanded JFK’s desire to see black astronauts in the space program, particularly Captain Ed Dwight.
“Yeager instructed staff and participants at the school that “Washington is trying to cram the nigger down our throats. [President] Kennedy is using this to make ‘racial equality,’ so do not speak to him, do not socialize with him, do not drink with him, do not invite him over to your house, and in six months he’ll be gone.” In his autobiography, Dwight details how Yeager’s leadership led to discriminatory treatment throughout his training at Edwards Air Force Base.”
Link: Chuck Yeager – Wikipedia
You will never read or watch Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff the same way ever again.
Despite racist Chuck Yeager, USAF Captain Ed Dwight made it into space at age 90 on a Blue Origin private space launch last year.
Ed Dwight, America’s first Black astronaut candidate, is shown exiting Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft on 19 May 2024. Dwight was among six passengers that launched atop the company’s suborbital rocket. (Photo: Blue Origin / Felix Kunze)
Just One More Thing…
American aerospace engineer John Houbolt as he stands at a chalkboard in July 1962 showing his lunar orbit rendezvous plan for landing astronauts on the moon. (Photo: NASA / LARC /Bob Nye /PhotoQuest /Getty Images
In April 1961, President John F. Kennedy had energized America’s space program by pledging to send “a man to the moon and [return] him safely to the Earth” before the end of the 1960s and he wanted to merge that with the civil rights movement as you just read. Safely returning an astronaut from the moon was the more difficult part of the equation as there are no rockets or launchpads on the moon.
The Pilgrim Project
The One-Way Space Man crew capsule. (Image credit: Bell Aerosystems)
To ensure the US would send a man to the Moon before the USSR, NASA established the Pilgrim Program. This was a one-way mission for one or two astronauts selected for this perilous journey. NASA was to pre-launch containers filled with oxygen tanks, water, food, and supplies ahead of the astronauts for them to survive on the Moon until NASA would be able to recover them at a future date. In this way, America would beat Russia to the Moon.
Source: https://www.wired.com/2012/04/one-way-space-man-1962/
Archived link: https://archive.ph/KalEw
Countdown is a 1968 American science fiction movie directed by Robert Altman and based on the 1964 novel The Pilgrim Project by Hank Searls.
Tiny Kitten Wanders Up to Woman On Her Way To Work In Mexico
Coriolanus 