Christo Grozev: the Russian spycatcher Putin wants dead | WTCTW Podcast

I've offended Putin personally. He hates

me. How were you informed that this Bulgarian spiring were after you and probably wanted to kill you? Well, that

was the day that my life changed. 3 days

in court and 3 days I was stared down by this killer and that was a cold stare that I still remember to today. How many

Russian agents have you exposed?

Thousands.

[Music] My guest this week is Christo Grav. He's

an open- source journalist and he made his name on the Bellinkat website and organization exposing Russian intelligence, exposing Russian spies and

he was the target of that Bulgarian spiring that was exposed in London very recently. He was on the kill list.

recently. He was on the kill list.

Christopher Graev, how would you change the world? Um, I can imagine a better

the world? Um, I can imagine a better world. I don't think I can change it. I

world. I don't think I can change it. I

wish the world was learning from the best and not going to the lowest common denominator, which is what we are seeing in the last 20 years. And I wish the world had a country that is the beacon

of a higher moral ground, which used to be the case when I was growing up. That

was the United States. There was that beacon, a very uh fictional one, but yet a beacon that could be a country that others could sort of align themselves

to. And that's gone. So I'm afraid that

to. And that's gone. So I'm afraid that that is the biggest problem in the world from my point of view. There's no one country or one group of countries that

can say we are the ones that stick to uh the moral truth and to morality. There's

that's gone. So I wish that could be brought back. You're you're a very

brought back. You're you're a very unusual kind of journalist. Um you're

not what most people conjure. Um, your

investigations have had huge impact and have caused great problems particularly for Vladimir Putin and for myself and for yourself and you've had great

personal expense as a result of that um which which I want to unpack. But but

what what has driven you as a journalist to investigate you know the secret services uh the murderers you know the state

sanctioned murderers um despite all the obvious dangers I think it's just the awareness that um one is able to that a

simple person a civilian can do the job that we always expected the intelligence services to do for this uh discovery I I thank greatly my ex-colagues from Bellinkat and and Elliot Higgins because

if he hadn't opened the door for me to join the team uh of volunteers early on, I would not have had the uh sort of the I would not have spent the time discovering this new capability that a

civilian can discover things that governments are trying to hide. And once

you know you can do that, it's very hard to not do it because a um there's a kind of a moral responsibility, a moral imperative for you to continue doing

that. And uh and b there's a bit of a

that. And uh and b there's a bit of a adrenaline rush when you are being attacked by the big guys when they're the ones that get worried about your

work. That means uh that it's worth it.

work. That means uh that it's worth it.

C can you explain what it is that you have done? Uh because people I think

have done? Uh because people I think people don't really understand what open source journalism means. And even Elliot Higgins at Bellingat talks about you as sort of as a man with special skills.

It's it's it's not that they taught you what you know, but you you do things that even they find difficult to get their heads around. No, it's it's pretty simple. you just sit down and think

simple. you just sit down and think about the problem like a detective would and then you apply all the digital tools that the old detectives of the Sherlock

Holmes type wouldn't have had. So it's a combination of methodological constructing an investigation thinking where would traces be have been left by these government killers and to that and

it helps that you learn what their traditional mistakes are and over time you learn more and more about their tradecraftraft and their mistakes and then just construct construct an investigation um and then you use all the digital

tools available which include reverse face search which wasn't available 10 years ago but now it is. you delve into thousands of leaked databases. Um, you

just have to have the patience to aggregate them, keep them on your laptop, not lose your laptop. Um, have

the patience and the time to browse at Excel tables or databases for days knowing that the success rate of you discovering the pattern or discovering

the uh the truth um are small. I just work until it pays off. What kind of mistakes do they make

off. What kind of mistakes do they make that make it easier for you? You want to hear the the fun part? Absolutely. Well,

it started with us discovering when we were investigating the scripple poisoners um in Salsbury, we discovered that the two Russian spies and that's how we actually proved they were spies

initially had used passports with a consecutive uh number. Um, and then we discovered that all of the Russian spies traveling under fake identity abroad had traditionally been using passports with

consecutive numbers, which allowed us to actually find even spies that we didn't know were spies and pinpoint them to locations and times when things had happened like an explosion of a munition

facility in the Czech Republic in 2014 that previously had not been tied to Russian spies. Now we knew that that

Russian spies. Now we knew that that must be tied because six of these fake Russian identities popped up exactly before the explosions there. Similarly,

poisoning of a Bulgarian arms dealer in 2015. Emilian Gabbrev again seven of

2015. Emilian Gabbrev again seven of these spies with fake identities pop up just before that. So this would be one example of mistakes they made. And how

do you how do you know that those passports have shown up somewhere? Is is

this leaked databases? Yes. uh over the last 10 years there have been a ever growing sort of amalgamation of of leaked travel databases mostly from Russia and the reason why Russia is such

a large source of leaked databases because their government is um likes to control people to surveil people so they aggregate every piece of data about their citizens every ticket purchased

whether that's on airplane or or or a train or a bus it gets uh brought into the central database that the Russian security service like to uh peak into and and and and check on their people.

But over time, this same system gets very corrupt and police officers with access to database start selling these data sets on the black market and

ultimately it is leaked after a couple of years to open source locations because it's no longer as valuable. So

we've just been aggregating these uh large data sets. The downside of that is obviously you can discover better more easily older crimes but still we've brought many many cold cases back to

being investigated because many governments or many law enforcement agencies had stopped investigating and two years or three years later we find the evidence in such leak databases and we literally guilt them into reopening

the cases. I mean, it's very interesting

the cases. I mean, it's very interesting that when I say what drives you, it's sort of it's because you can because you can find those things out because I think a lot of people would assume that

what drives you is you want to bring down Vladimir Putin or you want to bring down the Russian secret services. Well,

that becomes um that becomes a drive, but it's secondary. Um, and if I had discovered a way to prove other government's crimes as easily and if

those crimes existed, it would not have been I would not have stopped just because it's the US versus Vladimir Putin. But it is true that as I started

Putin. But it is true that as I started discovering more and more of these crimes, the monstrosity and the size of this system of government crimes has become ideological for me. an additional

ideological driver because I could not imagine could not have imagined until we discovered the Navani poisoning in 2020 that there had been a government program for assassination of their own citizens.

Before that we thought well they occasionally like the Mossad would do targeting killings abroad of enemies of the state but then suddenly we discovered they've had an industrial

scale program for assassinating their own people and that cannot but leave a trace in your u you know sort of a moral

compass. How were you informed that this

compass. How were you informed that this Bulgarian spiring were after you and probably wanted to kill you?

Well, that was the day that my life changed. Um, I was not informed directly

changed. Um, I was not informed directly because I don't think the law enforcement agent who told me that knew where the danger was coming from at that

particular day in time. I was uh doing a screening of the film Nalli in New York um during a short trip in early 2023

just before the Oscars and um I got a call from law enforcement in the US who told me you cannot leave back for Europe. I was planning to leave that

Europe. I was planning to leave that same day, that same evening. And I said come on, you must be kidding. I have a ticket for tonight. Well, they said we don't recommend that you leave because

there's a team waiting for you there. I

said what kind of team would that be?

there's some um cyber espionage of somebody trying to peek into my laptop and they said no it was it's much worse than that but we can't tell you more so just stay here so I stayed there and it

took a couple of weeks more before I was told by Austrian security services that where I used to live at the time that it is um a team of Bulgarians that have

been hired by Yan Marsalik to work in favor of Russia security services and again the serious iousness with which Austrian security services told me about

that um implied that there's a much more professional uh operation that had been going on for years, but they would not tell me because I was a potential

witness in British uh legal proceedings.

So I I got very very little in terms of details and I was asked not to investigate it myself in order to not interfere with the judicial process here. What did you say to your wife?

here. What did you say to your wife?

Well, at the time basically I got the uh the message, I told you so. And I think she was right about that because she had

told me so. Was she angry? Yeah.

Cuz the impact on your life has been extraordinary. Just give me a sense of

extraordinary. Just give me a sense of what it has done to you. Well, it's

suffice it to say that I live um a separate life and I'm not living with my family anymore. And that's probably for

family anymore. And that's probably for the better from a security perspective for for my kids as well.

Do you think it was worth it?

My children think so. And I think that's um a very important moral compass for anyone. If they can understand why I had

anyone. If they can understand why I had to make the sacrifice and they had to make the sacrifice, then I think it is worth it.

Um but again it's not a formula that can be applied to every life and it depends on where in life you are and and what uh how much you've contributed to your um

family in the past and to your children and I was probably lucky that it didn't happen earlier when my children would have deeded me much more than they do now. It looks like your daughter sort of

now. It looks like your daughter sort of followed in your footsteps a little. My

daughter actually um discovered one of the six arrested spies and I can't be prouder also importantly because she also has a right to say I told you so.

She had pointed out this man the sixth of the arrested spies in 2022 in the street and she said dad I think that's a

spy following us and I said uh Sophia don't try to be like your dad. I mean,

let me handle the spy catching. You just

do your school thing. She said, "No, Dad. I'm sure that he's a spy." And she

Dad. I'm sure that he's a spy." And she snapped a photo of him. And two years later, turned out that that photo was very, very important for proving that on the day that this spy ring broke into my

apartment in Vienna to steal my laptop, the one that they thought was the laptop from the Noil.

um that this person had been staking us out outside to make sure we don't go to the apartment, but only my daughter, who was 14 at the time, had noticed that person. Yes. I mean, if they had all

person. Yes. I mean, if they had all told you so, you you must have also known really that this was a risk that you were running because the people who

you're friends with, the people who you have known, um whether it's Nalli or Vladimir Karamosa, these people have all been targeted too. You're right. I mean,

it was a maybe a subconscious decision to ignore ignore the signs because if we start living by by the signs and by

fear, then we'll be completely uh our hands will be tied. So, I probably fooled myself into believing that I'm not as important for them. Uh that they

would imagine that because all of my investigations are are a product of group work. I mean I've trained many

group work. I mean I've trained many many colleagues in the same uh dark arts um of data journalism essentially and working with databases. I mean doing

something to me would not stop this process. It's become very trendy among

process. It's become very trendy among especially Russian journalists. They

love doing this and there are thousands of them who have left the country and have the freedom to work independently from censorship. So I thought and yeah,

from censorship. So I thought and yeah, nobody would try to get rid of me because it would not solve a problem.

But apparently as we find out now from the chats that have been disclosed, I've offended Putin personally and he was a driver behind

this whole operation. He hates me as Marcalik said in one of the messages.

Why have you offended Putin personally?

What what is it that he's annoyed about?

I think it boils down and and looking at exactly when this operation started. It

started the evening of the day uh of our publication of the Nani poisoning. It

started on the 14th of December 2022 20 2020 and that was the day we published the Nval investigation where we essentially pointed out this

industrial scale program of of trying to assassinate um political opponents but we also made fun of the FSB Putin's

favorite intelligence agency because we showed their faces we showed how easy it is to trace them. We showed all the mistakes they made and we had one of

them confess on the phone in a 53 minute long interview to his own uh victim Navalli uh that they had tried to kill him and that really really embarrassed

Putin. Furthermore, because he went on

Putin. Furthermore, because he went on on the TV um press conference to say that all of this is fake news and all of

this information is not the product of journalistic investigation but um something that has been fed to us by intelligence agencies by MI6 or CIA. So

that explains why for the longest time this group of six and many more that are part of this operation were looking for the uh fictional fantastical evidence that we

have some connection to an intelligence service and then when they didn't find it they were so angry that they decided to switch to kidnapping or killing. I

mean that's really interesting then. So,

so do you think um Putin and all his acolytes genuinely believe what they say that you are an instrument of the CIA or That's a very good question. So, I asked

this question to the person who recruited Yan Maralik, the main person in in charge of this operation, uh in a very strange and somewhat sincere phone

call with this Russian recruiter, spy master, I asked exactly this question.

uh do they believe this nonsense? And he

said, "Christo, you have to understand some people can sleep much better at night if they believe their enemy is the CA than if they have to acknowledge that

they've been um fooled by a journalist."

And I think that makes a lot of sense.

You embarrassed him. Yes. Yes. And it's

they take that embarrassment, they would take it with much a much softer landing if they thought that they've been outsmarted by

this huge enemy and not by some civilian group of journalists. How many Russian agents have you exposed?

Thousands. But here's how it works. We

name we've named probably 60. We never

named them unnecessarily. uh we only publish their names when they're in the context of an actual crime, but we have

thousands in our Excel sheets and spreadsheets. And the problem with that

spreadsheets. And the problem with that for the Russian intelligence service is they don't know how many we know. So

they've recalled everybody who has made ever any of these mistakes that we've um identified. So they've been taken out of

identified. So they've been taken out of circulation. They've been taken out.

circulation. They've been taken out.

Well, they've been brought brought back to Russia. They don't travel anymore,

to Russia. They don't travel anymore, but they're used to train new new spies.

They're used to train these people uh in in the UK who are a new type of spies, like hybrid spies. They're they're

criminals essentially who uh moonlight as spies. I mean, this group in the UK

as spies. I mean, this group in the UK were almost sort of comically bad. That

was like a cheap version of Oceans 11 kind of bad. Yeah. Yeah. But but again that doesn't take away from the from from the risk of what they

could have done. I mean being bad at what you do doesn't make you less dangerous. In fact in many cases

dangerous. In fact in many cases professional spies are less dangerous especially to um in terms of collateral damage to bystanders than such people.

These people don't know how to deescalate. On that day when this group

deescalate. On that day when this group broke into my apartment in Vienna to steal the laptop, they had not done their homework to find out that my son was in his room

playing a computer game. And he stayed doing that throughout their burglary.

Imagine what would have happened if he had walked out of his room. I don't want to think about it, but that's something a professional spy would not have done.

So again, the the fact that they were called minions, but I called them muppets, doesn't make them less dangerous than professional spies. They

tried to burn down the house that they believed belonged to me in Bulgaria.

There was just a random house that they had misidentified. So that is not not

misidentified. So that is not not dangerous.

It also exposed the way they had gone after your family and perhaps your father in particular.

Can you tell me what happened and what you what you think was behind it?

I still believe and hope this is a a cosmic coincidence.

um shortly after I was warned that I should not come back to Europe and I made it public in a interview in Austrian newspapers and my father

actually then uh posted the link to that interview on Facebook and literally the next day my father stopped answering uh phone calls from me and um yeah 4

days later we discovered that he was dead in his home near Vienna and Um that was treated as a suspicious incident by the Austrian

police. They took his body and um and

police. They took his body and um and did all kinds of tests for months and we couldn't really have a funeral.

But I had kind of parked that into sort of the cold cases and probably a coincidence um section of my memory

until the police here showed me um photographs of this team camped out in front of my father's apartment and then doing a selfie in front of the terrace to the apartment with an arrow saying

this way in. And this has opened up this wound again for me because I I cannot now not look at this as a potential um a

potential a very small chance but uh small probability but still a potential operation by others not by this team but held by this team to bring me back to

Austria at the time when they knew that I would not come back in order for them to continue with the operation.

Do you believe he was murdered?

I don't know and um I'm not sure I want to know.

That is the sort of the ultimate illustration, isn't it, of the the toll on you from choosing this life?

Um what what do you think it tells us about what you're up against and that regime?

I would like to broaden the answer because it tells us about the new reality in the world because I'm afraid that what seemed to me for years to be

the shocking truth about this regime that it only takes to explain to the world that that's happening that the world will be shocked and will take

measures to bring this regime down or to help the the people who are the victims. we see that becoming normalized and and

uh befriended by the US administration.

So I'm I probably that is the biggest uh bummer for me. I mean it's not that I haven't been able to single-handedly bring down Putin which is obviously a

lost cause. Uh but it's the fact

lost cause. Uh but it's the fact that what used to be the biggest helper for independent journalism, the United

States with all its resources, sanctions and um and intelligence services and ability to do cyber counterattacks and stuff that has essentially been put to

the service of Russia now.

So if anything um the value of what I do and what my colleagues do, what Romanotov does um increases significantly because it's going to come during a shortfall in what used to be

done by governments before. So what do you think that kind of exposure is achieving or could achieve?

Well, it does mobilize the good people around the world. I mean uh people default to by definition the best of people default to uh the least amount of

information they can live with uh so that they don't have to worry and it takes bringing and showing them and pointing them and convincing them of the

injustice around them for them to start worrying and I think this is what this does it it just brings to the four in the west the granular details of how

cruel this regime is and also shows the danger to the western world of this own of of of this very regime overstepping

physically the boundaries of of their operations to come come over and do their dirty work here. When you say this kind of journalism is increasingly

popular, particularly in Russia, do you think those people are taking the same kinds of risks as you? I think they're taking even bigger risks because they

cannot even imagine going back to their own homes anymore. They have to live a life of exiles. Um, and they didn't necessarily choose that. I mean, for me,

it was a choice. It was a conscious choice. They were they were pushed into

choice. They were they were pushed into that just because they couldn't do proper journalism, the only thing that they wanted to do, and stay in Russia.

they uh the moment they published anything resembling journalism they would have been jailed and and ended up maybe even killed so they had to leave the country and many of them went to the

United States and I don't want to belabor the point but many of them went to the United States and now they're faced with another dilemma like are they safe there in fact their visas are expiring and they they may not be

renewed so I think the Russian colleagues are taking even bigger risks what what was your first big expose Where was the moment you realized what

you were doing or what you were on to? I

would say that well the first big expose was on the disinformation campaign around the downing of Malaysian Airlines MH17 which I published on Bellinkat in 2015.

um the first real investigation that showed that you can do these things that only intelligence agencies we thought were able to um or even better than they

was when I helped identify the voices or the names behind the voices of several Russian officers behind the downing of MH17 that were published by the Dutch investigators with a call for action

saying we can't identify these people.

Can you the world help us? And we jumped on that with again such an adrenaline rush when a government says they can't do something. Uh I I would say that was

do something. Uh I I would say that was the first one that proved to me and to my colleagues we can be better than than government intelligence services.

Similarly when the British police the Mets published the faces of two uh random Russians saying who are these people because we think these names are

fake. We felt again the same adrenaline

fake. We felt again the same adrenaline rush and I did and it I discarded everything else I was doing for two months until I found who they were and

we published the names and it it it derived enormous happiness from being better than governments. So again, how did you identify them? Just talk take us through the sequence. Well, I wish we

had the time for that, but first identification was to prove that these people don't exist. And this is relatively easy with the volume of data leaking out of Russia. You have

databases of residential records of passports that go back 20 years. And

when you look at a name, look for a name in that database and find that it only suddenly appears in 2015, but it didn't exist before, it's easy to know that this is a fake identity. I mean, you

don't get born at age 37, right? So we

knew immediately that these names don't exist because they don't exist in all databases. But then finding who they

databases. But then finding who they really were took a good three months of work. And in one case um we were lucky

work. And in one case um we were lucky because we were able to find a face matching the face of one of these uh uh

poisoners on the wall of wall of fame of a military institute in eastern part of Russia uh where he had been called our

hero our military hero having achieved so many exploits around the world and that was the same face of of the person would you say you've managed to find in

the face. Are you using some very

the face. Are you using some very sophisticated software to We do use face face search software but in that particular case it just took countless

hours of going through u literal face books of like um school yearbooks of the most likely universities in Russia that would have trained spies. We started

with that. We ask what which would be the military institutes that would train undercover spies uh elite spies and we had only two that would have likely

generated this output of spies in the late '9s. So we went through hours and

late '9s. So we went through hours and hours of footage, graduation photos and uh and in this particular case it was an

alumnus from that in institute who had gone through the whole um campus with his camera and posted on YouTube and was showing everything that was on the walls

and in one instance he's walking by a wall of fame and we just noticed this guy looks like that guy. We made a forensic comparison of the two faces and

it was a match of 97%.

Wow. So when you look at what is now called mainstream journalism, popular journalism, do you do you find yourself thinking you could do so much more?

They have started doing so much more. I

think um the dawn of realization that open source is a totally mis misused or underused source of information. That

was about seven or eight years ago. And

both journalists started implementing those tricks and tools into their newsroom, but also intelligence services that previously didn't. They they

thought that was kind of a the the uh uh poor relation of uh of investigations.

um because it's free and they liked using their close sources, their their informants. But both journalists started

informants. But both journalists started doing that and and intelligence agents started doing that. I do sometimes still find at bulk at the at at at seeing how

some mainstream media still report what a source told them where I see so many easy ways for them to validate that through data, but they just stop at that. we were told and this is what we

that. we were told and this is what we report and I think that's that's that falls short of the demands of journalism.

So I mean you are now a target um and you've been warned and you know for a fact that people have been out to get you. I mean do you get any help? Do

get you. I mean do you get any help? Do

you have protection? Do you

you know are you are are you on your own or or do you have support? I I do have uh general support. I have moral support. Um when I'm in the United

support. Um when I'm in the United States, I I get advised of the risk um sort of factor as it

changes. I cannot safely go back to

changes. I cannot safely go back to Austria. Um unless I'm

Austria. Um unless I'm um accompanied by a whole team of bodyguards at any given time and uh and I'm advised not to go to the rest of

Europe. So that's kind of the limitation

Europe. So that's kind of the limitation that I have at this point to the whole of Europe. The whole of continental

of Europe. The whole of continental Europe, you can't go to I I'm advised not to. It's too easy for Russian spies

not to. It's too easy for Russian spies or their uh muppets to travel around the continent without leaving a trace. And so is

Britain relatively safe because of border controls? Exactly. Yeah. Because

border controls? Exactly. Yeah. Because

of the new and more intelligent border controls. Because border controls exist

controls. Because border controls exist in 2018, but somebody let these fake identities get visas to the UK. Somebody

let these sequential passports with zero history behind them enter the country and poison the Scripple family and kill

an innocent bystander. That was the wrong unsafe Britain. And I'm told that has changed.

Do you feel by raising your head as you are now in a documentary in interviews um you know you're high-profile um are you increasing your risk or are you

protecting yourself?

I think that the risk is has peaked and I don't think I can offend Putin twice.

Um and they don't forget these people don't forget. So I think the question is

don't forget. So I think the question is wrong. The question is what is the best

wrong. The question is what is the best usage of my time now that now that I know that the risk is at its peak and it's to speak out. So you will carry on.

I'm carrying on and and and will you turn your attention to other regimes as well or when you say this has become ideological for you do

you feel a moral duty to focus on this one? Well, my belief is that again when

one? Well, my belief is that again when I was a kid, I remember seeing this Bulgarian u uh film in which a kid asked

their mother, "Mom, why do you tell me that I should not befriend bad kids, bad students at school? Because I'll become like them. Why don't they become like

like them. Why don't they become like me?" And I think that's the general

me?" And I think that's the general problem in in the world that I think the example that is set by Putin of of the

impunity and being able to get away with anything and enrich yourself in the process is a perfect template and model for so many other governments around the

world including the United States at this point in time. And I think that if by any miracle we're able to defeat that

regime, that example will prove to be nonsustainable, unsustainable. And I

nonsustainable, unsustainable. And I think that in itself will help the whole world, not just Russia, uh or or the Russians rather. And that's why I think

Russians rather. And that's why I think I should continue doing what I can do best, which is identify Russian spies, getting them jailed, and maybe in the

end trade them for good Russians that are in jail in Russia. There is a very striking example of precisely that, isn't there, in your life? Could you

tell me about that example and how it felt to have a, you know, a man you know is a murderer released?

It's one of the hardest moral choices I've ever had to make in my life. I in

2019 I helped identify the uh the murderer in um in a political assassination that took place in Berlin and the murderer was an FSB officer um

who killed a Chetchin Georgian asylum seeker who was trying to get asylum in Germany at the time in broad daylight.

Um we identified the murderer. It took all of the tricks of our trade to prove that he was not who he said he was and to prove

his affiliation with the Russian intelligence services. And I was brought

intelligence services. And I was brought in as an expert witness by the German prosecutors and it was largely based on my testimony that the court accepted

that he was a state murderer and jailed him for life. Just remind me of his name. His name was Vadim Kasikov. I

name. His name was Vadim Kasikov. I

stayed three days in court and three days I was stared down by this killer from his cubicle. And that was a cold stare that I still remember to today.

And years later when I had realized in the meantime his personal his importance personally to President Putin because we found that he was his personal assassin and bodyguard and so on and so forth.

And Putin himself made very very strong statements publicly that he wants him back and he wants him free.

We knew that that's the biggest value that the West holds in terms of a trading card in order for a release of all of the Russian prisoners or or Western prisoners in Russian jails. And

it started with Nani because Navani at that time was critically ill in jail and we needed to find something to offer to put into trade for together with other

political prisoners and there were several Americans also and Westerners in Russian jails. So I started working on

Russian jails. So I started working on this back channel multilateral negotiation to try to get Nalli out, to try to get Vladimir Kar Kamura out, who

was also jailed at the time, to try to get uh even Gerskovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter was jailed. And I knew that the one thing that could help all of these people get out was the man

Putin wanted back. And even though that was a hard moral choice because he was a killer and the family of the killed person in um in in Germany, they didn't

want him to walk free. And I I I totally understand why. But I still thought

understand why. But I still thought that it's better to have the people who are still alive and could pose a problem, political problem for Putin and

could give hope to the other Russians that there can be a change for them to be free and alive then for the abstract justice of keeping this guy in jail for

for life um to to endure. So I I recommended for this swap and ultimately it happened but it was a very hard

choice. What is your feeling now about

choice. What is your feeling now about the strength of Putin in Russia and whether there is grounds for hope from your point of view?

I think Putin um certainly feels reinvigorated um and validated because of the United States

position again. for the first time

position again. for the first time voting alongside with Russia um in in history that I remember is something that he internalizes as his own victory.

But I think empires tend to fail and fall whenever there's a s sense of complacency and I think Putin is getting to the point of being complacent. So I'm

really hopeful. You never know how an empire is going to fall. They always

fall in a most unpredictable way. But I

do think that this sense of complacency and and as we see even in the case of the six spies here um a system built

around him that misinforms him that wants to tell him what he wants to to hear. We see throughout this uh three

hear. We see throughout this uh three year two and a half year operation that they've been lying up the food chain lying up the pyramid by providing fake explanations and uh and success stories

that never happened. I think it is this that will be the undoing of Putin. He

lives in a bubble. He thinks there's no risk for him at this point and the risk will pop up unexpectedly to him. So, how

easy is it for you to be an optimist?

I'm an optimist and I think in the long run um I've been proven to be right.

Um so it's it's not hard. It's not hard.

I mean being an optimist is the only thing that can explain why I'm doing what I'm doing. So it's easy. Chris

Groger, thank you very much indeed.

Thank you.