In Russia there are two types of passports, an internal one and an international one, for travel. This one is an internal one. On the top page, it says it was issued in 2001 by "УФМС" or Federal Migration Service (FMS). This is where it gets interesting en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_...

The passport number on the side has been blurred out but we can see the first four digits. On Russian passports, the first two digits (46) indicate the region where it was issued, based on the OKATO system - in this case Moskovskaya area org-info.com/okato.php?okat...

So far so good, this is also what it says in the "issued" field on the top page. But the third and fourth digits (03) should usually indicate when the form for the passport was printed. (h/t @bellingcat) archive.ph/Pg15s#selectio...

@bellingcat If the passport was issued in 2001, how could the form for it be printed two years later? There is another thing that doesn't make sense. The passport says the issuing authority was the FMS, but they only started issuing passports in 2004 kremlin.ru/acts/bank/21154

@bellingcat This is already pretty good evidence that the passport is fake. But there is more to it. If you reverse image search a cropped version of the image, correct the tilt, it turns up a lot of passports that look *very* similar

@bellingcat The stamp stays in the exact same position and the edges of the passport also seem identical in some key details. If you look further you can even find clearly fake passports that look like they're based on the same template, like the one below.

@bellingcat A lot of these "passport scans" are posted on anti-scam forums. So where might they be coming from? If you search for "generate fake passport" in Russian, some of the top results mention a program that is a couple of years old by now: "RF SCreater"

Turns out it uses the same template as the supposed Zelenskyy passport. In other words, this is most likely how the fake Russian passport was created. A little more on that here: dpa-factchecking.com/germany/220516...

* * *

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh