The Insider has already written about how propaganda publications unanimously reported that Russian troops captured two completely serviceable latest French Caesar self-propelled guns abandoned by the Ukrainians during the retreat. True, no one ever showed a photo of these trophies, and the primary source of information turned out to be a tweet from a little-known French leftist politician, who never said how he learned this. Now this plot has received an unexpected development: the same propagandists report that the self-propelled guns, it turns out, were not abandoned, but sold. Gazeta.ru, Lenta.ru, Izvestia, Tsargrad, Vzglyad and others retell the content of the publication in an online publication called Bulgarian Military , which says :

“French and Ukrainian (from Donbass) sources claim that the Russian army, or rather the production facilities of the Russian manufacturer Uralvagonzavod, are in possession of two 155-mm Caesar self-propelled howitzers, donated by France to Ukraine as military aid against the Russian invasion on February 24th. <…>

The news of captured weapons in wartime would not surprise anyone. We witnessed the capture by the Ukrainian and Russian military of various enemy weapons systems. But the same "unidentified" French sources claim, according to Donbas Insider , that two Caesar self-propelled howitzers were sold by the Ukrainians through an intermediary to the Russians. The price discussed in narrow circles is $120,000 apiece. BulgarianMilitary.com recalls that the cost of a Caesar self-propelled howitzer is around €7 million.”

On what basis did the Bulgarian Military experts come to such a sensational conclusion? Here is what the author of the article Boyko Nikolov writes:

“A political analyst at BulgarianMilitary.com says that the possibility that the two howitzers were sold to Moscow is evident in the tone and ending of the words of the French lawyer and politician Régis de Castelnau <the one who first wrote that the Caesar self-propelled guns fell into the hands of the Russian military. — The Insider >. “To him [the French lawyer] it is quite clear that during the war, in addition to prisoners of war, opponents acquire various foreign equipment. This is a war, some die, others give up their positions out of fear, and still others profit from the war. The commentary's ending - 'Thank you, Macron, we pay' - suggests that Régis de Castelnau believes that the two howitzers were not abandoned and therefore captured, but sold. The irony in this particular case is too strong to be ignored,” says Dr. Sebastian Levy, BulgarianMilitary.com correspondent and analyst for the Middle East region.”

How Dr. Levy - judging by the website of the Berlin private institute Hertie School , where he teaches , an expert in research on climate change policy and public attitudes - saw in the words of Régis de Castelnau a hint at the sale of self-propelled guns, it is impossible to understand. Obviously, he criticizes the government for the decision to transfer expensive weapons to Ukraine, which ended up in the hands of the enemy, but there is no word on how this happened in his tweet. After that, Nikolov adds:

Levy also says that he believes the two self-propelled howitzers were resold through an intermediary, a military dealer. Levy, however, has no proof of his claims, but refers to the considerations expressed in the circles to which he belongs.

It is on this basis that we are offered to consider that the French artillery mounts were sold. And for greater persuasiveness, they say that there have already been cases of arms sales by the Ukrainian military to the enemy, referring to a certain pro-Russian Telegram channel.

Little is known about the publication (more precisely, the blog) of Bulgarian Military . About itself, the publication indicates that it is included in the lists of "Top-60 military sites and blogs" from Feedspot and "Best military blogs" from Expertido . Feedspot is a content aggregator that compiles lists of sites on a wide variety of topics; nothing indicates that they are judged by experts in their respective fields. The Expertido lists look about the same. Publications in the Bulgarian Military are signed either by Boyko Nikolov or by the pseudonym TOC. But it cannot be said that this is a pro-Russian site: among its materials there is, for example, an article by the same Nikolov that Russian factories refuse to repair armored vehicles coming from the Ukrainian front, since burnt bodies are often found inside it. It appears that the site is simply aiming to publish sensational material without much concern for fact checking.