One of Vladimir Putin’s chief propagandists, Vladimir Solovyov, embarrassingly revealed the Rubicon HQ, a top military site that has previously been targeted by Ukrainian drones
Vladimir Putin has been humiliated by one of his top propagandists after he gave away one of the dictator’s top secret military locations through a toilet sign.
Blundering chief TV propagandist, Vladimir Solovyov, mistakenly revealed where Russia kept it’s most elite drone unit as experts geolocated the secret location. An unburied toilet sign in a report by Solovyov allowed people to figure out where the Rubicon HQ was. The trail lead to Hall D and part of Hall C at the Patriot Exhibition Centre, near Moscow, in a huge embarrassment for Putin as he continues to wage his illegal war against Ukraine.
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The site has been already targeted by Ukrainian attack drones, and could be again after this humiliating blunder. Solovyov is a highly-paid state TV propagandist for Putin and the war, but he carelessly failed to mask the toilet signs in a report about Rubicon.
OSINT researchers were able to identify the head of Rubicon, a “centre for advanced unmanned technologies”, as well as its head Colonel Sergei Budnikov.
A local report, on Radio Liberty, revealed how the toilet sign gave away the secret location, saying: “Solovyov’s editors forgot to blur the sign above the entrance to the restroom, which has a distinctive design, and the light board located above it, which, as can be seen from publicly available videos from Patriot, shows the word ‘restroom’ in Russian and English.”
The unmasking of Rubicon is an embarrassment for Putin’s defence minister Andrei Belousov, who was behind the development. The centre is involved in development and testing of new drones, operator training, and the deployment of its own units on the front lines.
The report added: “Russia owes much of the success of the Kursk [Region] operation to Rubicon, which emerged just over a year ago.
“The summer advances in Donetsk region are also thanks to Rubicon, which has learned to isolate areas of the battlefield, hunt enemy UAV operators, and cut off logistics just as well as the best Ukrainian unmanned units. This is….the collective assessment of the Ukrainian military and Western experts.”
Researchers were able to identify the location from open source pictures from a spring exhibition showing the same distinctive toilet signs. Footage from March showed Ukraine attempted an attack at or near the location.
Solovyov also found himself in hot water earlier this week as he threatened British RAF pilots with death if they are sent to protect Poland from Russian provocation.
He also falsely told Russians that France may be sending nuclear missiles to Poland with President Emmanuel Macron’s deployment of Rafale fighters.
Western warplanes have been sent to protect Poland as part of NATO after Putin encroached the country’s airspace with 23 drones last week.