NP: Thomas has always been wrong about the great Bellingcat. He needs to not believe what he sees and shows.

[Martin Dietze]

Bellingcat was one of the first targeted by Russian propaganda in 2014
after they had revealed some quite embarrassing facts about Russia's role
in the Donbass.
And, as we know, they have been quite successful when it comes to their
main target group: "West critics", mostly from the political left in
Central European countries nowadays uniformly condemn Bellingcat as an
"unreliable source" or even "West-paid liars". The latter is particularly
ridiculous, since Bellingcat do not really make a lot of statements on
their own but rather collect stuff that's available in the Internet, so
that basicallay everybody could check for himself (which those people do
not do, they rather stick to believing instead).

Worthwile noting that similar attacks were launched on all of Ukraine's top
politicians from the moment on they showed stance against Russian
imperialism:

Yatsenyuk has been accused again and again of being a nazi (allegations
include him having used the term "sub humans" which he didn't, also a
picture of him seemingly showing a nazi salute was shared again and again).

Poroshenko was bombarded with lots of stuff, most well-known in the West is
him allegedly having wished children in the occupied territories to sit
waiting in cellars (which he hadn't), while here lots of PR money was spent
in Ukraine trying to keep him from being reelected (successfully, as it has
turned out).

Zelenskyi had started with a rather moderate course towards Russia, but in
the moment he slightly changed his course, he has been under constant PR
fire, being accused of preparing a military offensive in the East and being
"aggressive".

This is all totally ridiculous if you know a bit about those people and
Ukrainian politics. But it is enough for the target groups.