Putin Targets Americans for Assassination on US Soil

On March 11, 2021 in a Washington DC apartment rented by an American citizen, a mysterious, fine-grained white powder was discovered in large quantity inside the apartment’s attic AC air plenum piled a mere inches away from the AC unit’s induction fan. The powder would later test positive for high levels of the heavy metal toxins thorium, uranium, thallium, strontium, vanadium, lead, mercury, arsenic, and others. The amount of strontium in the powder clocked in at a whopping 284,000 parts per million. The man in that apartment, was me.

Russian “Diplomat” Discovered One Flight Down

On the same day he discovered the white powder he stumbled across a 30 to 40 year old white man hastily moving out of an apartment one floor below. His movers on the sidewalk reported that he had self-identified to them as a “Russian diplomat.” The Russian spotted his upstairs neighbor and immediately turned his back on the American to hide his face as he walked past him on the sidewalk, clearly not wanting to be seen or photographed.

Russian Cyber-Attack Commences

Inside the Wi-Fi network in the poisoned apartment one-floor above the Russian, an unidentified device having a MAC address that mapped to a Russian-market Samsung phone that used GLONASS for location was found active on the American’s network behind his firewall as was shown in the firewall’s management interface. Other evidence of cyber-attacks was also discovered. Amazon reported that some of the IP addresses his laptop had been connecting to, which mapped to Amazon Web Services (AWS) virtual server IPs in northern Virginia, were actually spoofed Amazon servers and Amazon tech support would go on to explain that they knew they were fakes because their actual AWS servers did not behave the way these servers were behaving as was shown in the Wireshark packet capture file sent to Amazon for analysis.

Next would come an alert from Microsoft that his Microsoft cloud credentials had been hacked and someone had logged in using his credentials after having first been denied using the wrong credentials minutes prior. Then his NetGear WiFi router was compromised completely in what appeared to be a DDOS cache poisoning attack, in which he lost control of the router and had to abandon it when even a factory reset wouldn’t allow him to regain control. His Windows and MacBook laptops, his Amazon Kindle Reader, his Samsung phone, and then his replacement iPhone, were all hacked over the intervening months. It appeared that his entire software supply chain for all his devices had been compromised and updates to all his devices were coming from spoofed update servers from all his device vendors that were pushing down Russian malware.

Physical Breach of Cable Junction Box

He also discovered that the Internet coax cable junction box in the apartment building’s basement had been physically breached with a crowbar to remove the cover, thus giving the Russians physical access to his Internet coax cable and the coax tap where they could tap into all his Internet traffic on the wire and push their own software (malware) updates to his devices in what one might call a personal software supply chain attack of a different kind. Further, Netgear would a year later in March of 2022 disclose numerous security vulnerabilities in its RS400 Wi-Fi router to include CVE-2022-27642, CVE-2022-27647, PSV-2021-0323, PSV-2021-0327, CVE-2022-27644, and CVE-2022-27646. These vulnerabilities which involved what was called a “pre-authentication buffer overflow security vulnerability,” required an attacker to have one’s Wi-Fi password, or, an Ethernet (or coax) connection to one’s router to be exploited. This would solve the mystery of how the Russians had hacked into his Wi-Fi router and took over control.

He would also find a rogue white coax cable attached to the coax tap exiting the bottom of the cable junction box through a punch hole (outside the metal conduit) which led to an apartment on the floor below him which was how they were able to exploit the NetGear vulnerability since they had direct physical access to the wired (coax) side of his Netgear Wi-Fi router LAN.

Months later he would suffer an alarming outbreak of actinic keratosis with 12 pre-cancerous skin lesions appearing in the summer of 2021 on his face, scalp, and arm that required topical chemotherapy and cryotherapy to treat. He had unwittingly exposed his head and arms to the heavy metal powder when he found and collected the samples without proper protection before it was identified as toxic.

It’s How Putin and the GRU Roll

This is how Putin rolls. We’ve seen it with Alexey Navalney (poisoning his underpants with novachuk). We’ve seen it with Russian defectors in the UK. It’s happening in America, to American citizens, and its been happening since 2013. This wasn’t the first time this specific Russian multi-modal attack pattern played out in this American’s life. It would be the fourth. The pattern can be summarized thusly: (1) Get physically close by moving in next door (or below) or otherwise within Wi-Fi range; (2) befriend or compromise a neighbor or someone in the same physical residence/building (3) Break-in or otherwise gain physical entry; (4) Cyber-attack and compromise devices and cloud accounts and hack private files; (5) Introduce heavy metal or other poisons into the environment and into target via pulmonary system, skin, or via GI tract; and finally (6); Target and attack with directed energy weapon through adjoining wall.

Florida Chemical/Cyber-Attacks in 2019

In 2019 in Florida just two years prior, the same American had been poisoned with heavy metals, twice, and the vector had turned out to be, just like in DC, his apartment’s attic HVAC system, after he was also hacked and stalked by Russians who were showing up and staying as guests in the apartment next door to his right, and in what had been a vacant house immediately to his left. The poison was in the form of a silvery gray fine powder that was found impregnating the fiberglass insulation lining the inside of his bedroom AC ductwork where the contaminated air blew the powder directly on him where he slept and he breathed in it. He had been getting repeatedly sick with racking dry coughs and the doctors were mystified because nothing was showing up on his chest X-ray or on a standard blood/urine screen (other than a indication of some generic liver/kidney damage). Upon inspecting his HVAC system for contamination, he discovered the grey powder inside the bedroom vent cover, sent it out for toxicology testing, and it came back positive for the heavy metal poisons. His hair would also test positive for some of the heavy metal poisons such as the thallium that exceeded the FDA safe limit for thallium in a hair sample.

The first toxicology report of his hair sample from late June 2019 had shown high levels of thallium, strontium, molybdenum, rubidium, vanadium, titanium, and bismuth, indicating he had initially been poisoned in his first FL apartment sometime between March and June. A second toxicology report on a 4.5” long hair sample taken in June of 2020 would come back positive for high levels of thallium, rubidium, barium, nickel, and aluminum after he abandoned his 2nd FL apartment and had gone into hiding to recover. It is also noted here that a heavy metal toxicology test of swabs taken from the insides of his tennis shoes worn in 2013 had also tested positive for heavy metal poisons. More on that in Part 2 of this multi-part exposé. The poisoned tennis shoes from 2013 would be the first scientific evidence of his heavy metal poisoning.

  Like the 2021 Washington DC AC system poisoning incident, the fiberglass insulation, shown above as it was discovered after removal of the vent cover, tested positive for unsafe high levels of thorium, uranium, titanium, arsenic, strontium, thallium, lead, mercury, and other toxic heavy metals in varying high quantities. The use of the titanium and arsenic was corroborated via audio captured of the Russians talking about those heavy metals specifically as is detailed below. A total of 30 heavy metals were detected in the insulation in varying amounts, some of which showed up in his hair sample in the aforementioned 2020 test results.

After he had to abandon the apartment, his landlord would move to tear off the roof of the house to replace the attic HVAC unit and the contaminated ductwork, which had been accessible from the adjoining apartment through the common attic which spanned both apartments in what was a converted rancher.

Leading up to the Florida poisoning, he was cyber-attacked, and his Nest Security cameras were both hacked and taken down on 9/12/19 while he was being tested at the Mayo Clinic in Tallahassee. Just three days later after his Nest camera takedown, his Wi-Fi, and laptop were also hacked and Russian malware posing as legitimate Russian software from the Moscow based company Elcomsoft, was detected by his anti-malware software. It is noted that Elcomsoft’s password cracking software is used by the FBI and Elcomsoft’s founder went to school at a KGB-linked university. Elcomsoft’s US subsidiary in Nevada, Password Mining LLC, sold their password cracking software to the FBI in a $1,495M and $2.542M contract in March 2015.

Almost Cornered by Russian GRU Operatives Talking of Poisoning and Shooting Him With Silenced Pistol, Putin

After realizing his home internet connection was compromised on September 15th, he took his laptop around the corner to his local coffee house, the Gypsy Souls Café, to use its “non-compromised” Internet connection. There, he stumbled across two military-age Russian men playing chess and conversing in Russian with some English mixed in.

They began conversing in lowered voices and whispers. One of them spoke about shooting him with a silenced pistol. They referenced Putin by name and it appeared they were waiting for a kill order from him. One of them referenced waiting for the FBI to call them, seemingly indicating that the Russians have an FBI mole working for them. They spoke in Russian about “titanium” and “arsenic.” Here are some of the excerpts of their dialogue as was captured by the American’s cellphone microphone:

00:29 “I have to shoot him.”
00:37 “You kill him.”
02:22 у тебя с собой пушка? “Do you have a gun with you?”

02:27 пушка “gun” “Bushka” (pistol type)
02:33 “Army said, wait for Putin.”
05:43 “The FBI should call you.”
07:02 Может быть полицию ждет? “Perhaps waiting for police”
07:32 Меняемся? “Changing?”
07:41 Платина “Platinum”
07:46 мышьяк, да? “Arsenic, right?”
07:54 и я о том же “what I’m saying” (That’s what I’m talking about).
09:24 че можно еще не так играть “what, we can play more than that”
09:28 не, светло “No, it’s still light”
13:23 ну не совсем уже, я поэтому и хотел, чтобы прямо сейчас, вот он сидит “Well, not so. That’s why I wanted to right now, here he sits”
14:14 Нам команда не поступает “We don’t receive a command”
14:18 да ниче, все будет окей, пока он свой кофе пьет, двенадцатый кофе
“Yes, nothing, everything will be ok, as long as he drinks his coffee, the twelfth coffee”

15:46 глушка на нем есть? “Does it have a silencer?”

  18 minutes after the American sat down, the Russians bolted from the café out the back door leaving their bags behind then separated. The big one (nicked named “Moose”), with his shaved head and beard, blocked the back exit while the small one (nicknamed “Mouse”) ran around front and got in a Dodge Durango SUV with a “Bayamon” vanity plate on the front and put on a headset as rain started pouring down. Moose was huge, maybe six foot eight inches tall. The American, seeing his chance while Moose was out back and Mouse was distracted, slipped quickly out the front and escaped as the rain poured down, not realizing at the time that the Russians were waiting on a possible kill order from Putin and delivery of a silenced pistol.

The story of the first two (of the four) Russian attacks, which occurred in 2013 and 2016, will be covered in subsequent parts of this multi-part exposé.

How Can This Happen in America?

Opinion and Commentary

These Russian military intelligence operatives are believed to be officers in the GRU, acting in the US on the direct orders of Putin, carrying out espionage and other nefarious ops such as chemical (poisoning) and cyber and directed energy attacks (covered in subsequent parts of this exposé) against US citizens in Maryland, Florida, and Washington, DC as far back as 2013 and continuing to as recently as November 2021. Audio intercepts and recordings indicate they are under the direction of Putin, by name, in their own words. While reported to the FBI and the National Security Agency, they would go ignored by the Trump administration as the US intelligence community and FBI kept their collective heads down fearing retribution from the top. But just saying they were simply ignored out of say, a mere dereliction of duty, or fear of retribution, doesn’t capture the totality of the malfeasance in public office that went all the way to the White House.

Trump Expels 60 Russian Spies in 2018…With a Caveat

In response to the Russian poisoning of Russian defector Sergei Skripal and his daughter Ulia in the UK, on March 30, 2018, Fox News and most other major US news outlets reported that President Trump ordered the expulsion of 60 Russian spies operating under diplomatic cover, and he closed the Russian consulate in Seattle. What Fox News and other Trump-supporting media outlets didn’t disclose, however, was the big loophole left for Putin by Trump: Russia was allowed to replace all 60 with new “diplomats.” To quote one Russian official, “The doors are open.” C’mon man.
Under Trump, any intel on Russian evil plots, ops, and schemes aimed at the United States and its citizenry; let alone targeting our ally Ukraine, was quashed, called fake news, and was discredited by Russian disinformation and propaganda laundered through Trump, his enablers in the GOP, Fox News, OAN and the like. Worse, if anyone in the intel community poked their head up too high and attempted to do their sworn duty in response to the Putin malevolence, they were axed and Trump toadies replaced them. Just ask former FBI Director James Comey and the former head of the FBI’s counter-intelligence division, Andy McCabe, both fired by Trump. And Trump didn’t just fire McCabe, he served it with an extra helping of malice, as McCabe was fired just two days shy of retirement. Trump denied him his government pension earned after years of loyal service to his country, and he attacked McCabe’s wife. Trump’s firings of Comey and McCabe were pre-emptive strikes and were a warning to all Russian-focused intelligence analysts and FBI agents: You bring me dirt on my buddy Putin (who I believe over what you tell me anyway) and you won’t just be fired, you’ll be bankrupted and I’ll go after your family as well and make them targets of the far right fringe (just like he did to Mike Pence on January 6, 2021). Thankfully McCabe was able to claw back his losses and was able to reach a settlement with the Biden DOJ.

Remembering the Doldrums of 2019

Remember 2019? We lived in a wholly different world back in 2019 did we not? Putin and Trump were ascendant. Trump’s attorney general William Barr had successfully discredited and buffered the sting of the Mueller report. The Ukraine/Zelensky blackmail scandal and impeachment proceeding were underway but no real punches were landed thanks to Putin’s GOP enablers in the House and Senate and Putin’s massive disinformation campaign as laundered through Fox. Any exposure of Russian malevolence within Trump-world was quashed and derided as fake news. Anyone in the agencies fighting the good fight against Russia was fired or demoted or just kept their heads down in the hope to not get fired or demoted. The Intelligence Community actively sought to suppress Russian intel from reaching Trump because they knew it would enrage him and put their livelihoods, pensions, and families at risk of violence.
Russian military intelligence operatives, including the ones that assassinate with chemical weapons and nerve agents in Putin’s now-infamous GRU Unit 29155 as was exposed by Alexey Navalney and Bellingcat, ran rampant in the US, where they targeted American citizens for assassination, and our institutions for espionage, and our society for destabilization. And Trump didn’t just give them a free pass, he removed their obstacles and disabled American’s defense network.

The Russian SolarWinds Software Supply Chain Cyber Attack on the US Government

With their software supply-chain breach of US software company SolarWinds in late 2019-2021, which was discovered by FireEye and disclosed by the NSA and DHS/CISA, the Russians carried out the most massive breach of American classified networks in history, breaching the DOJ/FBI, The Pentagon, DHS/CISA, NIH, State Department, DOE, Treasury, Commerce, and at least 3 state governments (can you say Florida?) and the City of Houston. And it began, you may have guessed it, in September of 2019, the same time these Russians in Florida were attacking this American with references to getting a “call from the FBI.” Now why would two Russian GRU intelligence officers playing chess in a café in Florida ten feet away from this American citizen on September 15, 2019 be talking about getting a “call from the FBI”, “a gun with silencer, and heavy metal poisons. Sounds “mole-ish.” Wake up FBI counter-intelligence and get your act together. Time to go on a mole hunt. The SolarWinds software supply chain breach by Russia offers an insight into why this particular American citizen was targeted by Putin for compromise as far back as 2013, back when Putin was planning and orchestrating his 2014 Ukraine/Crimea invasion. In hindsight, Putin’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine can be seen for what it is: The culmination of what has been Putin’s now 9 year-old op which began back in 2013, when Trump cut his first deal with a Russian oligarch for the Miss Universe Moscow pageant and announced his first presidential exploratory committee.

Going After the Pensions and Families of our Defenders

Trump would fire those charged with finding and stopping the Russians and then he went after their families and pensions as a lesson to those deigning to dare to challenge Putin’s spies, who were on American soil attacking American civilians, not just our government networks. In short, Trump was the enabler in chief for Russian attacks on our elections, our institutions, our democracy, our networks, our social media platforms, our citizens, and our psyches….AND on Ukraine. Remember “Russia, if you’re listening…?” Listen Putin did, but he didn’t just listen, he acted with impunity, and Trump removed all the guardrails on Russian criminal behavior inside of America thereby enabling the physical and cyber-victimization of American citizens by Putin’s operatives. Trump’s joke of a Director of National Intelligence (DNI), John Ratcliffe, was a useless toady and sycophant of the worst kind. Trump even tried to install his pet Michael Ellis as General Counsel at the NSA in the last week of his presidency. Epic fail.

Ronald Reagan’s GOP Captured by Putin

Say what you may about Joe Biden’s failings. I’m not a Biden sycophant or cheerleader. This isn’t an article hyping Biden. But in contrast to Trump and certain useful idiots in the GOP, I have to point out the fact that it only took President Biden, his kick-ass DNI Avril Haines, his Secretary of State Blinken, DOD Secretary Austin, the Merrick Garland DOJ, and General Paul Nakasone, NSA director and head of US Cybercommand, three months after his inauguration to target and start kicking these Russian spies out of the United States, AND cutting the numbers that are allowed to be back-filled. The Republican party, my old Republican Party, the party of Ronald Reagan and Abraham Lincoln, would never have stood for this Russian bullshit. Liz Cheney won’t stand for it, God bless her. The fact that Joe Biden and the Democratic Party are the ones leading the charge in defense of America at a time when Putin is giving it to America and Ukraine up the ass, is an affront to my generation, an affront to anyone who ever considered themselves Reagan Republicans. To paraphrase Ronald Raegan, it’s time to consign Putin to the ash heap of history alongside his disgraced USSR.

A Putin-Trump Lobotomy of Logic and Realpolitik

Now that not even Donald Trump is willing to continue to throw his hat in with Putin’s lies and his evil war on Ukraine, which he thought was brilliant as recently as February, before it wasn’t, it’s time for Trump supporters who are still supporters to sever their relationship with that part of Trump’s brain and mouth that stood side by side with Putin for the four years of his presidency (and a year thereafter), that discredited the US intelligence community over Putin’s word, that touted Putin’s genius, that tried to dismantle NATO, that fired our counter-intelligence leaders, that played footsie with Kim Jung Un, that enabled an evil man who is our sworn enemy to attack America and Americans, on our own soil. That part of Trump’s brain suffered a forced lobotomy of logic and realpolitik on February 24, 2022. Now that we can all agree as patriotic Americans that Putin’s an evil asshole who has no place in the global village other than as a prisoner or corpse, perhaps we can all agree that Trump, and Fox News, and his enablers in the GOP, were and are, wrong, about just this one thing. Please join me in doing so, out loud, America. Call your GOP congressmen and senators and get them to step back from that Putin-Trump ledge my friends. Break ties with all the lies that they’ve been living in.

It’s Time to Recapture the GOP

Better for us all to have a Cheney/Kinzinger ticket in 2024 than Trump/Gaetz…or Trump/Jordan…or Trump/Taylor-Green, or how about even Cheney/Desantis? We need loyal (to America not Russia) GOP leaders with balls, even if only metaphorical, not another Putin toady in the White House. Say what may about Ron Desantis being a more polished version of Trump who panders to the far right fringe, it’s hard to imagine Desantis, a former JAG Officer in the US Navy, doing Putin’s bidding from the White House like we all saw Trump doing in plain sight since July of 2016 when we all heard his now infamous “Russia if You’re listening” speech. If there is one thing we all should be able to agree upon as loyal American citizens, we shouldn’t being having to waste time, energy, and our emotional and intellectual capital on debating the issue of why is our president behaving as if he’s been compromised by Vladimir Putin, the butcher of Ukraine? Let’s consign that issue to the ash heap of history.