A little tenuous, but maybe this Bellingcat employee is super famous and renowned?
It would be interesting if people here can come up with a better chain of verification. Until then, it’s certainly a fun bit of alt-fiction / creative writing.
And this is purportedly intelligence information coming from the FSB! I mean, military intelligence, what could go wrong with trusting sensitive intelligence of an ongoing war that someone posted on Twitter or Facebook?
I'm saying it's weird to trust a piece of military intel (precisely the kind of intel that gets frequently faked) just because some journalist claims two unnamed FSB spooks he happens to know "say it's legit". Well, would you trust unnamed experts on any other security related matter, just because someone on Twitter says so? And specifically in a context where we know disinformation is being spread left and right?
Why are we collectively so gullible?
> A draft version of a letter seen by Bellingcat and not publicly released by either ‘Alex’, Wikileaks or any of the journalists who have covered the so-called scandal, proves that a chemical attack did occur.
This seems super suspicious and is a deus ex machina that undermines all material inconvenient to the US. I don't find the "screenshot" very convincing, especially with the source being the director general of the organisation in question.
[1] https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20201026212840/https://www.belli...
If it's true then that should give it more credibility, as most probably Bellingcat is a CIA-cover organisation itself, so I suppose they do know their direct field adversaries.
I could just as easily argue that it gives it less credibility, as the CIA isn't known for "truthfulness" and has fabricated evidence in the past.