Moscow is looking for investigative journalist Grosev

Bulgarian investigative journalist Hristo Grosso, who lives in Austria, was expelled by Moscow to be wanted. Grosso said Austria was offering him personal protection, which he would accept. As requested by ORF.at, the State Department knew nothing of the matter today. We are in the process of collecting more information.

“I am curious about what I am being accused of,” the Russian expert, who has worked for the investigative website Bellingcat since 2015, told private Bulgarian television channel bTV. In July, the Russian Federation’s Domestic Intelligence Service (FSB) reported that Grozev had been involved in an operation carried out by the Ukrainian intelligence services.

Grozev was involved in the important Bellingcat investigation that has identified, among others, the three suspects in the 2018 poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, as well as two Russian officers convicted of shooting down MH17 in 2014, and the GRU operatives behind the attempted coup in Montenegro in 2016. Grozev is also responsible for revelations in the Alexei Navalny poisoning case in 2020. In November of this year, he also said in an interview that his research uncovered Russian programmers who programmed Russian missiles to launch air attacks on Ukraine.

Disappointed in Sofia

He hired a lawyer in Russia to find out why he wanted it. The investigative journalist suspects his past work is to blame. He said Bellingcat’s revelations over the past five to six years had destroyed “an entire branch of the GRU in Russia”.

After the Russian pursuit became known, Grossi stated that Holland, Lithuania and Sweden also offered to help. “Foreign governments have contacted me, and the Bulgarian government has not contacted me yet,” he said. Two days after the stalking was issued, the Russian ambassador to Sofia, Eleonora Mitrofanova, was invited to the Foreign Ministry. Grozev said he hoped for a “more appropriate” response from the Bulgarian government.