{"id":580467,"date":"2026-09-24T09:11:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T06:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=580467"},"modified":"2026-09-24T09:17:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T06:17:11","slug":"leading-russian-media-fall-for-fake-kgb-telegram-channel-report-about-foiled-sabotage-in-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/leading-russian-media-fall-for-fake-kgb-telegram-channel-report-about-foiled-sabotage-in-russia","title":{"rendered":"Leading Russian Media Fall for Fake KGB Telegram Channel Report About Foiled Sabotage in Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/t.me\/kgb_kanal\/186\">report appeared<\/a> on a fake Telegram channel purporting to belong to the Belarusian KGB (@kgb_kanal), claiming that a group preparing an act of sabotage at one of Russia&#8217;s strategic facilities had been stopped. Leading Russian media outlets fell for the fake report, after which the &#8220;news&#8221; was republished by almost all major Russian online media.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;According to available information, the operation was coordinated from Ukrainian territory, while Belarus was intended to be used as a transit route for delivering equipment, unmanned aerial vehicles and communications equipment to members of the group,&#8221;<\/em> the anonymous authors of the fake Telegram channel vaguely described the alleged operation.<\/p>\n<p>Vedomosti, RT, Vesti, Lenta.ru, Life.ru, Interfax and dozens of other Russian media outlets fell for the fake report. Belarusian media then picked it up as well.<\/p>\n<p>The fact is that Belarus&#8217; State Security Committee essentially has no official online channels. In April 2024, the Cyber Partisans <a href=\"https:\/\/reform.news\/kiberpartizany-vzlomali-sajt-kgb\/\">said they had hacked the KGB website,<\/a> and it has been offline ever since. On Telegram, the Belarusian security service attempted to establish an official channel at <a href=\"https:\/\/t.me\/KGB_BY_channel\/\">@KGB_BY_channel<\/a>, but it is updated irregularly and is used only to publish updates to the List of Organizations and Individuals Involved in Terrorist Activities.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_580448\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-580448\" style=\"width: 2560px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/vedomosti-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-580448\" src=\"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/vedomosti-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1315\" srcset=\"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/vedomosti-scaled.jpg 2560w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/vedomosti-300x154.jpg 300w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/vedomosti-1200x616.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/vedomosti-768x394.jpg 768w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/vedomosti-1536x789.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/vedomosti-2048x1052.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-580448\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Vedomosti publication. Website screenshot.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A report appeared on a fake Telegram channel purporting to belong to the Belarusian KGB (@kgb_kanal), claiming that a group preparing an act of sabotage at one of Russia&#8217;s strategic facilities had been stopped. Leading Russian media outlets fell for the fake report, after which the &#8220;news&#8221; was republished by almost all major Russian online [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":530864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/6ab4c06a743e0.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"Leading Russian Media Fall for Fake KGB Telegram Channel Report About Foiled Sabotage in Russia"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142339,142338,143127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-580467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main","category-news","category-society"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580467"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":580468,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580467\/revisions\/580468"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}