The two key themes running through The Black Sea are the ways in which Russia sought to obscure the truth and mislead over its role in the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) in Ukraine and the ongoing Russian efforts to interfere with and influence the democratic political process in the United States, including presidential elections.
As with my previous books, what follows is a necessarily selective list of some of the countless sources I used and read while doing my research for The Black Sea. It might form a starting point for those of you who like to explore some of the issues referenced in greater depth.
I have a great admiration for investigative journalists who are prepared to put their heads above the parapet and take personal risks in an attempt to uncover the truth. This should be the job of all journalists, but the reality is that in today’s media environment, the financial pressures on news organizations are such that in practice, very few are given the time and resources to carry out such work.
Those who continue to deliver outstanding work in very challenging circumstances are therefore worthy of particular praise, especially independent journalists who do not have the financial backing of larger organizations.
Bellingcat, the British online investigative journalism website run by Eliot Higgins, is one such outlet. I spent a lot of time reading through material produced by Eliot and his colleagues about MH17, and drew a great deal of inspiration and knowledge from it.
For those of you who haven’t checked out Bellingcat, I recommend you do so. Their valuable work includes not just investigations into MH17, but also the Syrian civil war, the poisoning of former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal in the UK, and the Yemeni civil war. They are widely quoted by mainstream media who have come to trust their methodology and accuracy.
Bellingcat can be found at: https://www.bellingcat.com/
The official Dutch Safety Board report into the downing of MH17 is available online at the following link: https://www.onderzoeksraad.nl/en/page/3546/crash-mh17-17-july-2014
If anyone is interesting in what a Buk missile system looks like and how it works, I would recommend a YouTube video from BBC News, which can be found at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlcmziopqZA
Many investigators and journalists chronicled the way in which Internet trolls based in Russia pushed out huge numbers of posts on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media outlets trying to heap the blame on Ukraine for the MH17 disaster.
Apart from Bellingcat, one particularly thorough account came from Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, a long-standing organization specializing in helping individuals whose human rights have been infringed. Based in Kharkhiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, it reported that the Russian troll campaign pumped out at least 65 million tweets trying to blame Ukraine for the disaster. See its account at: http://khpg.org/en/index.php?id=1557928691
A good account of how a Russian troll factory operates can be found in The Washington Post, which conducted an interview with an employee of the Internet Research Agency, based in St. Petersburg: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/02/17/a-former-russian-troll-speaks-it-was-like-being-in-orwells-world/
There are several good articles describing how the United States, chiefly through the CIA, sought to support Ukraine in its conflict with pro-Russian separatist forces in the east of the country.
One such account can be found in Forbes magazine, at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/melikkaylan/2014/04/16/why-cia-director-brennan-visited-kiev-in-ukraine-the-covert-war-has-begun/
The wider implications of the MH17 disaster for Russia and its people, for the West, and for international relations generally were discussed in great depth in a number of outlets. Two commentaries that appeared in The Economist at the time of the incident neatly summed up the views of many. You can find the first at: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2014/10/01/a-web-of-lies?spc=scode&spv=xm&ah=9d7f7ab945510a56fa6d37c30b6f1709
The second is at: https://www.economist.com/briefing/2014/07/24/collateral-damage
For a discussion about the range of weapons, missiles, and other military equipment that the United States provided to Ukraine during the conflict with Russian separatists, try the following article in the Ukraine-based Unian Information Agency website: https://www.unian.info/politics/10584102-u-s-could-supply-to-ukraine-surface-to-air-missiles-rfe-rl.html
If you would like to read more about the evolution of Russia following the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, there is a wide choice of books available. However, I would recommend an excellent account by one of the Financial Times’ journalists, Arkady Ostrovsky, entitled The Invention of Russia.
Ostrovsky describes how Russia, which appeared to revel in its new-found freedom in the first years after the break-up, ended up in a kind of autocracy once again at the hands of Vladimir Putin and his siloviki.The book includes some detail on how Putin sought to influence the 2016 US Presidential election. It can be found at: My Book
For a further account of how Russia sought to try and influence the 2016 US election, I would recommend an article by a former CIA officer, John Sipher, in The Atlantic. It can be found here: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/08/convergence-is-worse-than-collusion/567368/
I have located a couple of the scenes in this book inside the Situation Room in the White House. For those who are interested in what the Situation Room is like, I would recommend the following video on YouTube, produced in 2009 when Obama was still president, but nonetheless interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7ch13ZuMu8
The highly secretive operations of the National Security Agency are a source of some fascination for many. In this book, the NSA’s Tailored Access Operations unit features in a couple of scenes. For those wishing to read more about this unit, there is a detailed account in the German newspaper Der Spiegel, which can be found here: https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-nsa-uses-powerful-toolbox-in-effort-to-spy-on-global-networks-a-940969.html
For those who are interested, for whatever reason, in cemeteries, there is an interesting article on the Bellamorte website about the Glenwood Cemetery that features in The Black Sea. It can be found here: https://www.bellamorte.net/washington-dc-glenwood-cemetery-review.html
And if anyone would like to find out more about the McMillan Sand Filtration site, where Johnson captured Shevchenko in this book, an update on redevelopment plans and a photograph can be found at: https://dc.curbed.com/2019/10/31/20938082/mcmillan-development-demolition-construction-sand-filtration-reservoir
Another interesting article for connoisseurs of historic utility infrastructure about the McMillan site can be found here: http://www.bshs.org.uk/travel-guide/mcmillan-sand-filtration-site-washington-d-c
I hope all that is of use and of interest. Please e-mail me if you have any questions at andrew@andrewturpin.com
Published by Andrew Turpin