Thread by @ZarinaZabrisky

💥💥💥Thread: the connections between the author/sponsor of a proposal to divide #California and the #Russian government and oligarchs. #TimDraper #cal3 #November2018 @WendySiegelman @dcpoll @grantstern @peterjukes @brexit_sham @ushadrons @FavThngs @patrickLSimpson

1. A proposal to divide California into three separate states will appear on the November 2018 ballot. The “Cal 3” campaign got enough signatures for a statewide referendum.
theguardian.com/us-news/2018/j…

2. The author and sponsor of this proposal is a billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper. He first came up with the idea in 2013. His first attempt to divide California into six smaller states in 2014 cost him $5.2m...

2.1. ...but the proposal failed to qualify for the ballot: only 750,000 of the 1.14m signatures were valid. His second attempt in 2016 also failed.
sacbee.com/news/politics-…

3. In 2018, Draper cut the number of new states in half, and cleared the requirement for petitioners, reportedly paying canvassers $3 per signature.
theguardian.com/us-news/2018/j…

4.💥Now take a look: From 2007, Draper and his investment fund, DFJ is closely involved with the Kremlin-sponsored agencies in Russia. 👇. 👇. 👇. 🔎🔬

5. 💥 In 2007, DFJ co-manages the fund DFJ-VTB Capital Aurora with the Kremlin-controlled bank, the VTB.

5.1. ( DFJ was not contributing directly to the fund: half of the money came from the Russian government and 20% from the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development.)
venturebeat.com/2007/09/27/ven…

6. VTB Group (Vnestorgbank) is owned by the Russian Government. Its main shareholder (60.9%) is Federal Agency for State Property Management (parent company: Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation.)

7.🤔 Since 2014, VTB has been subject to the US, EU, Canadian, Japanese and Australian sanctions due to its role in the Crimean crisis, the Russian downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 and Russian provocative actions against Ukraine and Japan.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VTB_Bank

8. VTB played an important (although unclear) role in Rosneft privatization deal in 2016
threadreaderapp.com/thread/9968458…

9. VTB CEO is Andrei Kostin, a close ally of Putin, sanctioned by the US in April 2018.

10. 💥 In 2009, RUSNANO, a 100% government-owned joint-stock company, joined the VTB--DFJ Aurora Capital Fund. ... $100 million. RUSNANO will commit $50 million to the fund, VTB - $50 million," stated the press release.
en.rusnano.com/press-centre/n…

11. 🤔 Note: the President of Russia appoints the CEO or Rusnano. In 2007, (right at the time of DVF-VTB fund launch) Putin appointed Leonid Melamed as Rusnano CEO

12. 💥 In 2010, Russian Venture Corporation (RVC), a government fund of funds and a development institute of the Russian Federation, joined the partnership.
vtbcapital-im.com/venture_capita…

13. RVC planned to hand over $1.25 billion to top-tier venture capital firms (there were only three, including DVF.)

13.1. "The venture firms have to invest the money--along with some of their own money--into Russian start-ups, or start-ups created by Russian expatriates that are based in Russia" at "generous terms."
cnet.com/news/russia-to…

14. 💥 In 2010, Draper and the CEO of DVF-VTB Capital Aurora Alexander "Sasha" Johnson visited Moscow where their group met with the Russian authorities, including the Ministers of Education & Science, Economic Development...

14.1. and the president of the state-funded innovation center Skolkovo, the Russian state-funded high tech developer,oligarch and a close ally of Putin, Victor Vekselberg.

en.rusnano.com/press-centre/n…

15. 💣 Boom. Vekselberg is lately under the scrutiny for his involvement with 2016 campaign and the Trump administration.

iapm.ru/showpage.php?i…
ivp.com/Articles/Fogel…

16. 💣 A company linked to Vekselberg made payments of a reported half million dollars to Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen received payments after the 2016 presidential election.
washingtonpost.com/world/who-is-v…

17. In case you missed it: Read more on Michael Cohen's thirty years of connections with the Russian mob.
medium.com/@ZarinaZabrisk…

18. In December 2015, Vekselberg attended the 10th anniversary gala for the Kremlin-owned RT channel, where Putin sat beside Michael Flynn.
washingtonpost.com/world/who-is-v…

19. Shocking, but both Skolkovo and Vekselberg were under scrutiny for misusing one billion dollars and a major corruption case in 2013.
ewdn.com/2013/11/13/sko…

20. The DVF-VTB Aurora fund has also been accused of receiving "illegal kickbacks and racketeering" and sued in Californian court.
leagle.com/decision/inadv…

21. The Russian investigative journalists uncovered "fraud" and "waste of public money" by the DVF-VTB fund managers; the list of hi-tech innovations included a new model of condoms requiring just one hand for application. A touching detail.
scribd.com/document/13600…

22. Draper has been attending conferences and forums in Russia on a regular basis from 2007 to 2017
webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache…

23. Alexandra Johnson, the head of DJT-VTB Aurora, is closely connected with the Russian government, Skolkovo and has been listed as a speaker at RVC forum with Victor Vekselberg as recently as April 2018.

ewdn.com/events/russian…

24. 🤔 So what, say you? Draper likes to work with the sanctioned Russians. No big deal. Let's see. The previous attempts to split California were supported by Russia. 👇. 👇. 👇. 🔎🔬

25. In the early hours of 9 November 2016, shortly after it became clear that Donald Trump would be the next president of the United States, the hashtag #Calexit hit Twitter's list of top trends, according to the BBC News...

25.1. The hashtag was mentioned 100,000 times in the course of a few hours and was artificially driven by automated bots or fake accounts.
bbc.com/news/blogs-tre…

25.2. BBC Trending has found evidence that the hashtag had some outside help, from accounts run by people based in Russia
bbc.com/news/blogs-tre…

25.3. According to the BBC, "the California independence movement has been spearheaded by a group called Yes California. One of the group's co-founders, Louis Marinelli, opened a self-styled California embassy in Moscow, and later moved to Siberia."

26. Russian ultra-right Internet site (and former TV-channel) Tsargrad, funded by Konstantin Malofeev, known for his financial support of the Russian separatists in Ukraine and headed at some point by Alexander Dugin...

26.1. positively covered Draper's attempt in April 2018 as soon as it gathered signatures. (photo)
medium.com/@thomasafine/t…

27. "The campaign for California independence is not the only American secession movement with links to Russia...

27.1. ...Heart of Texas was for a time the most popular pro-Texas independence Facebook page, with more than 250,000 followers. But US Senate hearings revealed that the account was allegedly run by the Internet Research Agency."
bbc.com/news/blogs-tre…

28. Preston Wiginton, “American confederates-separatist” and supporter of Texas seceding attended the Russian Nationalists' March in Moscow and has links to the Russian ultra-rights supported by the Kremlin.
medium.com/@ZarinaZabrisk…

29. 😕 But why do the Russians care about our separatists? A referendum, from Crimea to the UK to Catalonia, became one of the favorite tools of the Kremlin. “Divide and Conquer” is at the core of the “doctrine” of Alexander Dugin, nicknamed "Putin's brain."👇. 👇. 👇

medium.com/@ZarinaZabrisk…

30. "Russia is attempting to influence the midterm elections in the United States in November as well as divide the transatlantic alliance, US Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats warned at a meeting co-hosted by the Atlantic Council in Normandy, France, on June 8.

31.
atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atla…

32. NATO believes Moscow is involved in a deliberately ambiguous strategy of information warfare and disinformation to try to divide the West and break its unity over economic sanctions imposed on Russia following its 2014 annexation of Crimea.
reuters.com/article/us-spa…

33. Read more details on this story and see more exciting photos and links here: medium.com/@ZarinaZabrisk…

34. Do not just laugh it off. Because #Brexit and #Trump. Because #Russia. Because #HybridWar. Vote!!! Share information. #Resist. Also,