Grozev: Many Western politicians are Russia's useful idiots, and we journalists have to find proofs because prosecutors don't do their job

Translating from the Faktor:

"Hristo Grozev: Russian FSB uses politicians - useful idiots who go to Russia

14 November, 2025 

An excerpt from an interview with Bulgarian investigative journalist Hristo Grozev for UA. 

 

– How big is the scale of the FSB’s influence on European politicians? Is this at the level of some deputies, or does it go higher? So you and your colleagues from “Insider” are exposing this agent network — how far have they managed to get? 

 

– It can be said that we did not expect the FSB to have such a wide agent network, because this is not the service that should deal with this. This is a job for the SVR, a job for the GRU. The FSB is typically supposed to deal only with counterintelligence activities on the territory of Russia — to catch spies. And they have this fifth service, which, as an exception, has the right to deal with the former countries of the Soviet Union. It was this service that was given a mandate to deal with the near abroad during the FSB reforms. But, like any structure that exists without any control, that draws up its own budgets and wants to increase its own importance and relevance, and also to receive more money, the FSB quickly decided to expand the scope of its powers. And the fifth service began to deal not only with the near abroad, but also with the distant abroad.

 

They, of course, find all sorts of tricks to get such a mandate. For example, in the investigation we published about how the fifth service of the FSB was supervising deputies from the right-wing party in Germany — “Alternative for Germany”. What did they do? They found a Ukrainian whom they had recruited back in 2014-2015 — it’s Vladimir Serge, who appears quite often, at least until recently, on propaganda channels in Russia. And because he had German citizenship, it was he who became the right recruiter of deputies from the “Alternative for Germany” for the FSB. They find such tricks. And one of the tricks they also use — to invite or organize visits to Russia, to Crimea or to Donbas for such “useful idiots” from Western Europe, many of whom are politicians from far-right or far-left parties. And during their visits to Russia, they recruit them, and then they become their assets. Here are a few examples of how the FSB gets a share of the pie that should normally go to other services.

– Hristo, do we understand correctly that even after the start of the full-scale war, when the rhetoric in the West became quite aggressive towards the Russian government due to Putin’s actions, contacts between FSB curators and their wards from the Western political elite are still continuing? 

 

– Yes, that’s the scariest thing. In 90% of cases, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine did not lead to any awakening among these wards of Western politicians. They continue to come. We see that curators from the 5th service of the FSB invited and drove around the occupied territories about 12 people from Western Europe in July last year. We will also publish all these names. Unfortunately, it cannot be said that people who most likely received money from them — or at least some leverage — have realized that they should not work with them. They continue to do so.

 

– Will there be any real consequences for those involved in your investigations and what awaits them from the point of view of European or international law? Could this be interpreted as espionage or treason? Will there be criminal prosecutions? 

 

 – We hope there will be. And in my experience, all our investigations over the past 10 years have led to consequences, because prosecutors in different countries are ashamed that journalists are revealing and publishing what they should be dealing with. And we will continue to put pressure. 

 

In the case of Tatiana Zhdanok, there is an interesting point in Latvian law - that even if she was a spy until 2016, this does not count as espionage, but if she continued after 2016, it already leads to criminal liability. Therefore, it was important to find out whether she continued to communicate with people from the FSB after 2016. And we were able to prove that at least one communication took place - she asked for money and arranged a meeting. We can already see that those who were previously her ideological supporters in the European Parliament are now avoiding her - she has become unacceptable to them. This is at least some consequence. We can also see that Serge has also become unacceptable - he was even forced to resign from his post in the Bundestag. And a criminal investigation is already underway against him because he lied when obtaining German citizenship - he did not say that he also had Russian. We also published evidence of his Russian passport. So there are consequences. It's just sad that journalists have to deal with this, given that there are prosecutors' offices that receive money for it.

 

– Hristo, tell me, please — I understand that it is not customary to reveal plans and the exact number of people involved in future investigations — but how big is the volume? Should we expect more revelations and activities of the fifth service of the FSB and their colleagues in recruiting Western politicians? Will there be more series? 

 

– Yes, there will be. There will be at least two more series of this series. One will focus on what they did to Ukraine, because they were allocated a budget of billions to be able to recruit enough politicians in Ukraine before the start of the full-scale invasion. We know that they did not succeed, but there were attempts and they spent this money. We will reveal an approximate list of about ten politicians, journalists and, possibly, military personnel with whom they tried to establish contacts and recruit. And regarding Western politicians — the next part will be related to the “useful idiots”, the people who became conduits of Russian propaganda and who were curated by the fifth service. There are many Scandinavians there, many French, many Italians, and there are also Bulgarians — unfortunately. This will be one of the next episodes. 

 

– Hristo, allow me one last question. The popular joke says: “the turnout was botched.” Once you managed to expose the FSB’s plans, will there be consequences within the fifth service itself? Will heads roll, will there be resignations, or will the Russian special services simply not react externally and regroup quietly inside, without any purges? 

 

– Publicly, they will pretend that nothing has changed. They do not like — and Putin does not like — to admit that there were mistakes precisely in the service that is the basis of his legitimacy and popularity. Therefore, on the surface, everything will look great, but underneath — it is not. There will be investigations, there will be dismissals. According to our data, even after our investigations, including the investigation into the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, there were not only dismissals, but also numerous arrests of FSB employees for “the turnout was botched.” Now I think it will be the same."