A Ren-TV employee posed as a BBC journalist in order to get close to the opposition in Europe.
Journalists found out that an employee of the Russian federal TV channel Ren-TV, Airat Shiryaev, posed as a special correspondent for the BBC Russian Service "Mark Nazarov" in order to film events of the Russian opposition in Europe.
Airat Shiryaev is a former employee of NTV and the Izvestia media group, now working for a company that produces content for REN TV. He created WhatsApp and Telegram on a British phone number under the name Mark Nazarov, and also created an email with the address of marknazarov.bbc@gmail.com. In addition, he forged the press card of a BBC correspondent, but made a mistake in the word "valid" - he wrote it with a "w".
In particular, under the guise of a BBC journalist, he tried to get accredited for a meeting with Tatyana Lazareva in Dusseldorf. One of the organizers of the meeting, Yuri Nikitin, suspected forgery and turned to the editorial office of the publication. The BBC asked to let "Mark Nazarov" in to meet him at the event.
However, Nazarov did not come to Düsseldorf, he sent there the local stringers he hired - Olga and Sergey, whom he also convinced that he worked for the BBC. Olga showed reporters a list of questions for an interview with Tatyana Lazareva, which he sent her. Among others were the following: "In Russia, you were included in the list of terrorists and extremists. What do you think about this?", "Russian propaganda says that you are happy about the strikes of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Russia, if you do not take it out of context, as you actually said?"
Olga called "Mark Nazarov" at the phone number from which he wrote to her on WhatsApp, and asked who he really was. He assured her that he was a BBC reporter, had previously worked "at Echo, at Venediktov's" and "left Russia after the start of the special military operation." After that, the BBC journalists themselves called him, but he continued to assure them that he worked for the BBC, and offered money for a video recording from a meeting with Lazareva.
"Don't ask stupid questions so you don't get stupid answers. And I don't want to tell you. Especially for comrades like you. Change your position, come to Moscow, maybe I will tell you how my photo ended up on the BBC press card. And now I suggest that you merge into the sunset and not interfere with our work," he eventually wrote in response to a request from the BBC editorial board on Telegram.
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