The Russia investigator on exposing assassinations and Putin’s plots, looking over his shoulder — and using a cat to find a secret agent
Although the town sits at 8,000ft, it is a scorching afternoon in Aspen. Christo Grozev, lead Russia investigator at Bellingcat — the open-source investigative group that has exposed numerous Russian plots and assassinations — apologises for being about 20 minutes late, having just completed a five-hour drive up into the Rockies from Denver.
He says it has been the first “significant time” he has spent with his family since February, when he was forced to leave Vienna after Austria’s authorities told him they could no longer guarantee his safety. In spite of being Bulgarian, Grozev has been indicted by Vladimir Putin’s judicial system as a “foreign agent” — essentially an enemy of Russia with a target on his back. Having weighed up other European options, Grozev concluded that America was the safest place to be. His family remains based in Europe.
Dressed in a short-sleeved shirt and slacks, Grozev sports a mildly greying goatee that sits well with his 54 years. I ask him in which part of America he has settled.
“Let’s say I alternate between the west and east coasts,” he says. “You don’t know what the new rules of the game are. There were certain rules before, including that you [the Russians] don’t do anything on American soil, but one never knows whether it is significantly safer here. What is clear is that Europe isn’t safe. And I got that message from several European law-enforcement agencies, including in Austria. You have to understand it takes a lot for the Austrians to admit they can’t protect you, so it must be serious.”
We are seated at a garden table at the Jerome, the town’s grandest hotel, with a shimmering view of the peaks around us. Grozev, like me, is here to attend the Aspen Security Forum — a gathering of America’s national security establishment at which Putin’s Russia will be a big focus.
Exposing Putin’s methods has been Bellingcat’s forte. Grozev was part of the team that accepted an Oscar this year for Navalny, a documentary about the attempted murder of Russia’s now jailed leading opposition figure, Alexei Navalny. By exploiting Russia’s corruption, Grozev got hold of flight manifests, intelligence agency-issued fake passports and open-source data to prove that Navalny had been poisoned with novichok, almost certainly on Putin’s orders.
Bellingcat also investigated the killing of Boris Nemtsov, another Russian dissident, and exposed how GRU agents (Russian military intelligence) had tried in 2018 to kill Sergei Skripal, a former Russian agent, and his daughter at their home in Salisbury, UK, with the same nerve agent. Though he cannot be defined as a “traitor” — the most at-risk category of Russian nationals who almost invariably meet with painful ends — Moscow clearly sees Grozev as a menace.
He has twice returned to Austria under heavy protection. On the second visit in March, after his father had died, the police said it was too dangerous for him to go to the funeral. He was only briefly allowed to meet his family with a police chaperone in a Viennese safe house.
I tell him I feel guilty to be robbing him of time with his family now. “Don’t worry, they were so tired, they went to crash,” he says. “On the road trip from Denver we felt like we were in that great yet terrible movie RV. We played country music and sang to it. Family time.”
It also seems like a good time to order. Like everything else in Aspen, the menu’s prices are exorbitant. Grozev goes for two starters — spätzle, an Alpine egg noodle, and peas and carrots. I choose salmon with black rice and another side of peas and carrots. “I’m ordering spätzle because I miss Austria,” he says. We both order a glass of chilled sancerre. “I need it after that drive,” he says.
How does it feel, I ask, to be here in absentia? Grozev laughs. After the Russians indicted him “in absentia”, he posted a selfie video from Palm Beach, Florida, against a sunset backdrop. “I said, ‘If this is absentia, it’s a pretty great place to be.’”
Is Austria the least safe European country? “Yes,” he replies. “While we [Bellingcat] were investigating the Austrians, they were surveilling me and I wasn’t aware of that at the time. They were doing so explicitly at the request of the Russians. That is deep penetration.”
He says the Germans advised him not to settle in Germany. He last visited Germany in 2020 under heavy guard as a witness in the prosecution of a Russian who had assassinated a Chechen exile. “We are also investigating examples of Russian security services penetrating German political circles,” he says. “France, I would not trust them: they don’t even trust themselves. The only place in Europe I can come to safely nowadays is the UK.”
It’s unsettling to be reminded of how the world’s richest man is susceptible to Russian propaganda because he is not media literate. Great interview, but it’s a little unsettling to be reminded that Elon is not just a clown but also dangerous.
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The Russia investigator on exposing assassinations and Putin’s plots, looking over his shoulder — and using a cat to find a secret agent
Although the town sits at 8,000ft, it is a scorching afternoon in Aspen. Christo Grozev, lead Russia investigator at Bellingcat — the open-source investigative group that has exposed numerous Russian plots and assassinations — apologises for being about 20 minutes late, having just completed a five-hour drive up into the Rockies from Denver.
He says it has been the first “significant time” he has spent with his family since February, when he was forced to leave Vienna after Austria’s authorities told him they could no longer guarantee his safety. In spite of being Bulgarian, Grozev has been indicted by Vladimir Putin’s judicial system as a “foreign agent” — essentially an enemy of Russia with a target on his back. Having weighed up other European options, Grozev concluded that America was the safest place to be. His family remains based in Europe.
Dressed in a short-sleeved shirt and slacks, Grozev sports a mildly greying goatee that sits well with his 54 years. I ask him in which part of America he has settled.
“Let’s say I alternate between the west and east coasts,” he says. “You don’t know what the new rules of the game are. There were certain rules before, including that you [the Russians] don’t do anything on American soil, but one never knows whether it is significantly safer here. What is clear is that Europe isn’t safe. And I got that message from several European law-enforcement agencies, including in Austria. You have to understand it takes a lot for the Austrians to admit they can’t protect you, so it must be serious.”
We are seated at a garden table at the Jerome, the town’s grandest hotel, with a shimmering view of the peaks around us. Grozev, like me, is here to attend the Aspen Security Forum — a gathering of America’s national security establishment at which Putin’s Russia will be a big focus.
Exposing Putin’s methods has been Bellingcat’s forte. Grozev was part of the team that accepted an Oscar this year for Navalny, a documentary about the attempted murder of Russia’s now jailed leading opposition figure, Alexei Navalny. By exploiting Russia’s corruption, Grozev got hold of flight manifests, intelligence agency-issued fake passports and open-source data to prove that Navalny had been poisoned with novichok, almost certainly on Putin’s orders.
Bellingcat also investigated the killing of Boris Nemtsov, another Russian dissident, and exposed how GRU agents (Russian military intelligence) had tried in 2018 to kill Sergei Skripal, a former Russian agent, and his daughter at their home in Salisbury, UK, with the same nerve agent. Though he cannot be defined as a “traitor” — the most at-risk category of Russian nationals who almost invariably meet with painful ends — Moscow clearly sees Grozev as a menace.
He has twice returned to Austria under heavy protection. On the second visit in March, after his father had died, the police said it was too dangerous for him to go to the funeral. He was only briefly allowed to meet his family with a police chaperone in a Viennese safe house.
I tell him I feel guilty to be robbing him of time with his family now. “Don’t worry, they were so tired, they went to crash,” he says. “On the road trip from Denver we felt like we were in that great yet terrible movie RV. We played country music and sang to it. Family time.”
It also seems like a good time to order. Like everything else in Aspen, the menu’s prices are exorbitant. Grozev goes for two starters — spätzle, an Alpine egg noodle, and peas and carrots. I choose salmon with black rice and another side of peas and carrots. “I’m ordering spätzle because I miss Austria,” he says. We both order a glass of chilled sancerre. “I need it after that drive,” he says.
How does it feel, I ask, to be here in absentia? Grozev laughs. After the Russians indicted him “in absentia”, he posted a selfie video from Palm Beach, Florida, against a sunset backdrop. “I said, ‘If this is absentia, it’s a pretty great place to be.’”
Is Austria the least safe European country? “Yes,” he replies. “While we [Bellingcat] were investigating the Austrians, they were surveilling me and I wasn’t aware of that at the time. They were doing so explicitly at the request of the Russians. That is deep penetration.”
He says the Germans advised him not to settle in Germany. He last visited Germany in 2020 under heavy guard as a witness in the prosecution of a Russian who had assassinated a Chechen exile. “We are also investigating examples of Russian security services penetrating German political circles,” he says. “France, I would not trust them: they don’t even trust themselves. The only place in Europe I can come to safely nowadays is the UK.”
It’s unsettling to be reminded of how the world’s richest man is susceptible to Russian propaganda because he is not media literate. Great interview, but it’s a little unsettling to be reminded that Elon is not just a clown but also dangerous.