One investigation did the work. One outlet wrote about something else entirely.
The New York Times published a substantial investigative report — with reporter Aaron Krolik named on the byline — tracing a Moscow firm's use of shell companies, cryptocurrency, and a custom app to forge trade records and funnel drone parts to Russia's war in Ukraine. Across the rest of the sources in this story, the Washington Examiner ran an opinion piece about Russian assassins that does not engage with the sanctions investigation at all. Two outlets, zero overlap.
Russia's global sanctions evasion network exposed
2 sources · hover a dot to see coverage
What happened
The New York Times published an investigation, credited to business data correspondent Aaron Krolik, exposing a Moscow-based firm that built a systematic infrastructure to evade Western sanctions on Russia. The operation used shell companies and cryptocurrency to launder money, and a purpose-built app to falsify trade documentation, allowing Russia to import drone components despite sweeping financial restrictions imposed after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The Times produced both a written report and an accompanying video explainer. The Washington Examiner's contribution to this story's coverage is an opinion piece about Russian assassination networks, which does not reference the sanctions investigation. That is the wire version. Two outlets have it. What separates the coverage is that one of them isn't covering it.
The Times did original reporting. Everyone else was absent.
The New York Times is the only outlet in this story's coverage that engaged with the sanctions evasion investigation. Krolik's report names specific mechanisms: shell companies, cryptocurrency laundering, and a custom-built app for forging trade records. The video explainer suggests the Times invested enough in this story to produce two distinct formats. No other outlet in this coverage picked up, advanced, or reacted to the investigation. The Washington Examiner ran an opinion piece on Russian assassination networks — a related subject in the broadest sense, but not a response to or engagement with the Times's findings.
What one side told you that the other didn't
One outlet investigated. The other filed an unrelated opinion piece.
The Washington Examiner's presence in this story's coverage is an op-ed about Russian spy services and assassination programs. It shares a subject country with the Times investigation but does not mention sanctions, shell companies, drone parts, or Aaron Krolik's reporting. The result is that right-leaning outlet coverage of this specific investigation is, functionally, zero. A story about how Russia is actively circumventing the West's primary non-military tool against the war in Ukraine has one outlet on it.
The custom app for forging trade records went unrepeated anywhere.
The Times's most specific and reportable detail — that the Moscow firm built a bespoke application to falsify trade documentation — appears in the Times and nowhere else in this coverage. That detail is the difference between 'Russia evades sanctions' (a known general fact) and 'here is the specific technical infrastructure they built to do it.' With only one outlet carrying the investigation, that granular finding has no amplification, no follow-up questions, and no political pressure attached to it.
What to watch
The Times investigation names a specific Moscow firm. If the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control or a European sanctions authority designates that firm within the next 30 days, watch whether right-leaning outlets that ignored the original investigation cover the government response — and whether they credit the Times reporting that preceded it.
See how outlets across the political spectrum framed this differently — and what each side left out.