Christo Grozev, Top Russian Espionage Investigator, Reveals Dangerous Changes in Spy Activity

#Russianespionage #TheManPutinCouldntKill #futureinreview2025

Christo Grozev, head of investigations with The Insider / Der Spiegel, noted onstage at Future in Review 2025 new patterns he’s seeing in Russian espionage behavior. He explained that GRU Unit 29155, the Russian foreign assassination unit he has tracked for years, is expanding its breadth of operations in anticipation of growing gray zone conflict.

On the expansion of capabilities, Grozev noted that Russian units are now outsourcing espionage activities to foreigners posing as refugees. He stated: “Some of the things that we’ve seen them doing are only compatible with preparing for a hot war, such as infiltrating West European water-purification companies just to get the secret data on where they’d have to drop – well, a bottle of Novichok [nerve agent], to put it bluntly – and then kill a whole city. […] It will be relatively random how it happens, when it happens.”

Grozev also described the strategy of these new battalion-sized assassination units, pointing out that the mindset is effectively “‘Let’s forget trying to make the world like Russia. […] That ship has sailed. So let’s make sure that they live in existential fear so they don’t have the bandwidth to worry about what we’re doing internationally.’ That includes terrorist attacks; that includes false flag operations, cyber.”

In this video, Grozev also covers the following:

Russia Becoming Very Sophisticated at Multi-Pronged False Flag Operations
Grozev noted that in the 2016 US elections, North Korea hacked the Democratic National Committee. Russian operatives traded that access for access to the Bangladesh national bank, which was then hacked for money by North Korean actors. In 2015, they hacked Qatar National Bank, then blamed it on a Turkish fringe party that was anti-Erdogan. Erdogan got the benefit of smearing an opposition party, while the damage was actually done to the Qataris who were supporting Syrian rebels.

GRU Foreign Assassination Unit 29155 Is Evolving to Perpetrate Gray Zone Warfare to Sow Chaos Around the World
The unit is hiring and training foreigners in sabotage activities and disguising them as refugees to infiltrate Europe. Russian units are now building private military company (PMC) units at a battalion tactical group (BTG) level, mixing cyber, terrorism, poisoning, and sniper units into a comprehensive whole.


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