Russia started working in a new way after exposing spies abroad – investigator Grozev

Russia has changed its tactics abroad after a series of exposures of its spies and expulsions of diplomats following the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Bulgarian investigative journalist Hristo Grozev told this in an interview with  LIGA.net.

"After they suffered such losses, after they lost so many spies, they had to work in a new way," Grozev said.

He explained that the peak of the new work became possible for Russia after the start of a full-scale war. Russian special services are working in two new ways. In particular, they use Russian citizens who are not so obviously linked to the special services.

Grozev said that he had managed to find a large number of such semi-spies. According to him, these are young people who used to work in Russian law enforcement agencies, then resigned, and later returned to work as agents abroad.

These are Russians aged 30 to 45 who appear in Europe with quite large sums of money. The journalist clarified that they bring their families there to demonstrate that they are not spies, but migrants fleeing the war.

In addition, according to Grozev, Russians recruit Ukrainians from the temporarily occupied territories. These are mostly men with criminal records. Russians train them in Moscow and then send them to Europe under the guise of Ukrainian migrants and refugees. And it is very difficult to find a reason why they should not be allowed in, the journalist stated. He called this category "the most dangerous.".

Russians also recruit citizens of African and Latin American countries, including Venezuela, Colombia, and Cuba, for espionage work.

• In February, the WSJ wrote that Russia's spy services have a new shadowy unit that targets the West and conducts covert attacks across Europe and elsewhere.