The BBC’s coverage of the murder in Berlin of former Chechen commander Zelimkhan Khangoshvili struck a nerve with Russian actors intent on turning the narrative away from the likely culprits of the assassination: Russia.

On September 19, 2019, BBC News Russian published an investigation into the circumstances around Khangoshvili’s murder. Khangoshvili, an ethnic Chechen in possession of a Georgian passport who was a veteran of the Second Chechen War, was murdered on August 23, 2019, in broad daylight in Berlin’s city center. The official German investigation has yet to deliver its final assessment of the case, but on September 27 Bellingcat provided open-source investigative evidence that suggested the Russian state backed Khangoshvili’s assassination.

While the international community continued to search for clues as to the identity and motive of the assassin, multiple Twitter and VKontakte (VK) accounts along with fringe pro-Kremlin websites unleashed a disinformation campaign against BBC, denouncing its coverage as a “Western conspiracy against Russia” and branding Khangoshvili “a terrorist.” This type of reaction — e.g., blaming the West, pushing conspiracy theories and misleading or fabricated narratives — is the modus operandi for the Kremlin. For example, when assassins linked to Russian intelligence attempted to poison former spy Sergei Skripal in the United Kingdom, the Kremlin similarly spread disinformation to obscure the truth of the case.

Twitter accusations

On September 18, nearly a month after the murder, BBC Russian published a story titled, “Shots in the center of Berlin. The life and death of a Chechen field commander.” The story included interviews with Khangoshvili’s wife and brother.

BBC Russian’s story about Khangoshvili’s assassination with the headline, “Shots in the center of Berlin. The life and death of a Chechen field commander.” (Source: BBC News Russia/archive)

The BBC’s Moscow extension subsequently promoted the story on Twitter.

BBC Russian tweeted the story out from its official Twitter account. (Source: @bbcrussian/archive)

Soon after the story went live, several Twitter accounts quoted it, accusing the BBC of supporting the “terrorist Khangoshvili,” and included a screenshot of a different BBC Russian Twitter post other than that currently available on the outlet’s Twitter feed. It is unknown whether the tweet in the screenshot was of a tweet that had been removed by BBC Russian or whether it was fabricated. In this “differing screenshot,” the news outlet allegedly referred to Khangoshvili as “fearless, fair, and honest.” One of the accounts provided a link to the BBC’s tweet, but the tweet was unavailable.

Twitter accounts claimed that BBC tweeted different language for its article about Khangoshvili. (Source: @wwwkisulkenru/archive, top; @tvjihad/archive, bottom)

The differing screenshot showed the BBC tweeting, in Russian: “‘Fearless, fair, and honest — nobody needs such people. Luckily, he was one of those people and that is why they removed him.’ A month ago, in the center of Berlin, a Chechen field commander was shot dead. The BBC learned the details of the incident.” BBC Russian’s available tweet, however, reads in Russian, “Shots in the center of Berlin. The life and death of a Chechen field commander.”