Fascist Fashion: How Mainstream Businesses Enable the Sale of Far-Right Merchandise

Fascist fashion items can help promote and provide funds for extremist groups. In some instances, it appears, their sale relies upon key services provided by prominent businesses that have policies against promoting racist organisations and hateful content. An investigation by Bellingcat has found that a number of far-right and neo-Nazi online stores...

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Unravelling the Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh

Shireen Abu Akleh, a prominent Palestinian-American journalist working with Al Jazeera, was killed by a gunshot to the head on the morning of May 11, 2022 while reporting from Jenin, a Palestinian city in the West Bank. Abu Akleh was covering a raid that was being conducted by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). It was one of several raids the Israeli...

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This New Tool Lets You Analyse TikTok Hashtags

In just a few years, TikTok has become one of the world’s most successful social networks. The company claims that its platform is used by over a billion people every month. TikTok’s role during the invasion of Ukraine has changed the common misconception of a website predominantly used by its young users to post videos of lip-synced songs or dance...

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Bellingcat is Banned in Russia. Here’s How to Beat the Block

On March 16, Russia’s Prosecutor-General added Bellingcat’s website to a blocklist. This is the latest of Moscow’s ongoing attempts to prevent our investigations reaching the public. We have been aware of the possibility that our website will be blocked for some time and remain committed to our readers in Russia. To that end, we have taken measures...

Apr 2022

Russia’s QAnon Followers Can’t Make Up Their Minds About Ukraine

Hours after Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, what looked like a reassuring plea for peace was posted on a popular Russian Telegram channel. “Dear God, save Russia and Ukraine,” the post read. “We are blessing each other. Please forgive us for our sins.” Below, a photo was added of two people with their arms around one another. One wore a...

Apr 2022

Russia’s Kramatorsk ‘Facts’ Versus the Evidence

On April 8, 2022, a Tochka-U short-range ballistic missile struck the main railway station in Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region of government-controlled Ukraine. The missile killed at least 50 people, including five children. Civilians had gathered at the station to flee the approaching Russian offensive, which has pivoted to the country’s east in recent...

Apr 2022

France Targeted ‘Terrorists’ with a US-Made Bomb in Mali. Witnesses Say They Hit a Wedding

On January 3, 2021 two French Mirage 2000D fighter jets carried out an airstrike near the central Malian village of Bounti. According to local activists and a report by the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission to Mali (MINUSMA), the strike hit a wedding party. Twenty-two people were killed, including 19 civilians. Most of the dead were...

Apr 2022

Russia’s Bucha ‘Facts’ Versus the Evidence

Recent images from the town of Bucha just outside Kyiv, captured as Ukrainian forces regained ground following the retreat of Russian forces, show widespread destruction and corpses in civilians clothes strewn across streets.  These images have been shared on social media and broadcast by members of the international press who have visited the town...

Apr 2022

Food Delivery Leak Unmasks Russian Security Agents

Russian tech giant Yandex has blamed one of its employees for the hacking and subsequent leak of data from Yandex Food, a popular food delivery service in Russia. Among the many users affected are serving agents of Russia’s security services and military, who in several cases even ordered food to their places of work using their official email addresses....

Apr 2022

Boris Nemtsov Tailed by FSB Squad Prior to 2015 Murder

Previously, Bellingcat and partners discovered that a secret FSB squad had followed Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny during his presidential campaign in 2017, and in the days and months before he was poisoned in 2020. The same squad had also tailed Vladimir Kara-Murza and Dmitry Bykov in the days and months before their suspected poisonings....

Mar 2022