Bellingcat is a group of people who make use of internet and social media to support their theories. They claim to provide evidence about MH17, Ukraine and other events related to the New Cold War. But would these "social media investigators" be able to do that which the world's most advanced intelligence apparatus of the Anglo-American Empire and NATO could not do, to provide real evidence? The western elite and their media sure want the world to believe just that...



Eliot Higgins is the main character behind Bellingcat. He has been profiled in print by The Guardian, The Independent, The Huffington Post, and The New Yorker. Television features have been run by Channel 4 News and CNN International.** Australia's number one news site 'news.com.au' has an article titled Bellingcat citizen journalist Eliot Higgins is holding global governments to account **. Newsweek has one titled Meet Eliot Higgins, Putin's MH17 Nemesis.** The Independent has an article titled With Isis, Assad and Putin exposed, who's next on citizen journalist Eliot Higgins' list?**

Obviously, the mainstream media in the west want us to believe this social media nerd solved all world events from behind his laptop while no intelligence agency was able to. Before he started Bellingcat, Eliot Higgins was known for his blog called Brown Moses.** So, he presents theories based on social media and western mainstream media greedily take these as evidence without question. However...



Jens Kriese - Spiegel: Expert Criticizes Allegations of Russian MH17 Manipulation
From the perspective of forensics, the Bellingcat approach is not very robust. The core of what they are doing is based on so-called Error Level Analysis (ELA). The method is subjective and not based entirely on science. This is why there is not a single scientific paper that addresses it. ... Contrary to what Bellingcat claims, Error Level Analysis does not provide clear results. The conclusion is always based on the perspective of humans, on their interpretation. ... And its founder Neal Krawetz also distanced himself from Bellingcat's conclusions on Twitter. He described it as a good example of "how to not do image analysis." What Bellingcat is doing is nothing more than reading tea leaves. Error Level Analysis is a method used by hobbyists. *

Jens Kriese is an image forensics expert who calls Bellingcat's method "Kaffeesatzleserei".** In other words, it's idle speculation. Bellingcat's way of working goes something like this: something bad happened, Russia did it, let's try to find evidence that fits with this conclusion. For example the "University" of Copenhagen released articles like Satellite images prove Russian artillery strikes into Ukraine ** and We proved that Russia fired artillery into Ukraine.** But the reality is that none of their so-called "evidence" resulted in prosecution simply because it wasn't real evidence. And this calls itself "university".

Let's take a look at the organizations affiliated with Bellingcat and Eliot Higgins...

In August 2014 Eliot Higgins said in an interview: Future projects involve working with the OCCRP and Hacks/Hackers London on tracking cross-border crime and corruption.** There is collaboration between Bellingcat, Hacks/Hackers London and the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).** OCCRP is supported by the Open Society Foundation run by billionaire George Soros, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Ford Foundation, U.S. Department of State, United Kingdom Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, USAID, National Endowment for Democracy, and others.** The Ford and Rockefeller families are two of the richest families on earth.

PIJI - How Bellingcat champions open-source investigations (5 May 2026)
Although Bellingcat does not accept money from organisations that are fully funded by individual governments, such as USAID, Higgins says the “devastating blow” of last year’s USAID funding cuts “had a huge negative impact on the whole funding ecosystem”. Now, funding is “a real struggle to come across”. *

In 2012 the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America issued a resolution calling for the immediate expulsion of USAID from their nine member countries due to the fact that we consider their presence and actions to constitute an interference which threatens the sovereignty and stability of our nations.** In 2014 it was reported that foreign governments have long accused USAID of being a front for the CIA.** Democracy Now headlined with Is USAID the New CIA? Agency Secretly Built Cuban Twitter Program to Fuel Anti-Castro Protests.** The Guardian reported that USAID is used to renegotiate the balance of power between the state and society.** USAID was used as a front for CIA operations and operatives. Among the most infamous examples was the Office of Public Safety, a USAID police training program in the Southern Cone that also trained torturers.** Interestingly, USAID says about itself...

USAID - Who We Are: Mission, Vision and Values
On behalf of the American people, we promote and demonstrate democratic values abroad, and advance a free, peaceful, and prosperous world. In support of America's foreign policy... We partner to end extreme poverty and promote resilient, democratic societies while advancing our security and prosperity. *

But in reality USAID is involved in aiding regime changes for the Anglo-American Empire. This is in line with the so-called colour revolutions around the world which are sponsored by the west. The Euromaidan in Ukraine was one of those, it led to the western-backed coup.

The Open Society Foundations is sponsored by multi-billionaire and staunch anti-Russian George Soros who openly admits to work towards regime changes in former Soviet countries by means of so-called colour revolutions. See Euromaidan. In October 2014 he warned that Russia's expansionism poses an existential threat to the EU and called for greater material support for Ukraine.** But the only expansionism on the Eurasian continent has been done economically by the EU and militarily by NATO, and that poses a threat to Russia and thus also to the safety on the European continent. In an interview in January 2015 he said: Russia has become a mafia state in which the rulers use the resources of the country to enrich themselves and to maintain themselves in power.** But then what about the western power elite of the Anglo-American Empire and the many aggressive wars they fought for resources and power?

Bellingcat is closely linked to the Atlantic Council which has influential supporters, with former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen calling the Council a "pre-eminent think tank".* The Atlantic Council is another so-called "think tank" of the Anglo-American elite. And these kind of stink tanks are funded by the richest people on earth. See also for example Foreign Government Contributions to Nine Think Tanks ** or Think tank accountability: are they really just hired guns or is it slightly more complicated than that? **

Eliot Higgins even had his own personal Atlantic Council page which in the meantime has been deleted.** Oxford University gave Eliot Higgins a podium to spread his propaganda on 22 January 2018 saying: His inquiries have revealed extraordinary findings on subjects such as the downing of flight MH17 in Ukraine and the August 21, 2013 Sarin attacks in Damascus. Higgins is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab.** Journalism.co.uk reported that Bellingcat's analysis of Russian military involvement in Ukraine has been collected into a report by the Atlantic Council.** The Atlantic Council is of course also linked to NATO...

NATO - Melvin Small: The Atlantic Council, The Early Years
...the Atlantic Council, which since its founding in 1961 had promoted NATO and European American cooperation... The fact that the organization struggled with finances through most of its history to the point where it had to recruit more and more dues-paying members, belies the notion that it was intimately tied to the government, especially considering that other volunteer organizations were receiving under-the-table subsidies from the Central Intelligence Agency at the time. One would have expected such an elite club, full of well-connected and wealthy diplomats and executives, never to have much of a problem making ends meet.

There are of course more organizations of the western elite involved, but the circle is complete and the point has been made. All these organizations are heavily involved in the New Cold War and the propaganda that goes with it. They are run by the Anglo-American power elite and are utilized to serve their agenda.

See also FOI raises further questions about Bellingcat coordination with Western intelligence,** Reuters, BBC, and Bellingcat participated in covert UK Foreign Office-funded programs to weaken Russia,** Bellingcat Funded by US and UK Intelligence Contractors that Aided Extremists in Syria.**

Eliot Higgins also appeared at Big Tech's Google. See for example the Google Ideas video called Arm Chair Analytics: The Story of "Brown Moses" in which things are said like: ... expert... Brown Moses... a guy who is the foremost expert on arms being used on the ground in the Syrian conflict. Never been to Syria, doesn't speak a word of Arabic and he conducts his profound research from the comfort of his armchair in his home.** Apparently these kind of incredible stories are meant to make the sheeple believe that this guy can do what no intelligence agency can do, and that he does it "from the comfort of his armchair in his home". It's hilarious. And then these kind of useful idiots get to do TED talks as well.

In another Google Ideas propaganda video called Conflict in a Connected World Google states that the control of the information has always been a priority of dictatorships.** Google almost completely controls all information in the world and is part of the world's foremost intelligence apparatus and abuses its power to take away everybody's privacy, but most importantly, it feeds you the information the power elite in control of it want you to be fed. In 2017 even the EU fined Google €2.42 billion after a seven-year investigation into claims the technology giant abused its internet search monopoly.**