Investigative journalist says Putin personally ordered his assassination “in horrific ways”.

Christo Grozev, a notorious Bulgarian journalist who investigated Russian government-sponsored crimes, says the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) has established a whole “university for saboteurs” in Moscow and St. Petersburg to train operatives for disruptive missions in Europe and other West-leaning countries.

In an interview published this week, Grozev affirms that most recruits are from Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine, particularly Kherson, along with individuals from Latin America and Afghanistan.

"They call it a university for saboteurs. The majority are Ukrainians from Russia-controlled regions, especially Kherson. They are trained by GRU officers we are already familiar with. The second category is more interesting - individuals from Latin America, including Venezuelans and Cubans, some of whom were recruited in Russia or have arrived specifically for this training," Grozev explained.

The third group includes young Afghans recruited by GRU in 2023–2024 for sabotage operations, with some being admitted in Europe as “refugees.”

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The "university" was established for three reasons, Grozev explained. Firstly, a series of investigations exposed approximately 100 GRU spies operating abroad; a whole GRU network collapsed as a result. Many agents were killed or injured during the war in Ukraine and staffing has become a problem. And last, GRU diplomatic personnel, often posing as "second military attachés," can no longer travel to Western countries.

"We’re talking about 80–100 individuals who used fake passports, carried out sabotage, recruited agents, and orchestrated coups. Most of these operatives have now been expelled or reassigned to train foreigners for the same missions," Grozev noted.

While the exact number of GRU-trained agents remains unclear, their actions include sabotage operations in Poland, the Czech Republic, last year’s incidents involving DHL warehouses, and possible elsewhere.

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Christo Grozev also said that Vladimir Putin has taken the operation against investigative journalists under his personal oversight. He personally ordered the surveillance and assassination of Grozev on 20 December 2020, soon after the publication of an investigation revealing that Alexei Navalny had been poisoned with Novichok.

Citing British intelligence reports, Grozev recalled,

“Putin had instructed the GRU and the FSB – or whoever gets to me first – to kidnap and smuggle me to Moscow; if this plan fails, I must be killed in most horrific ways possible.”

He referred to the trial of several Bulgarian nationals in London under charges of spying for the Kremlin and conspiring to assassinate Grozev and Roman Dobrokhotov, editor at The Insider, a partner investigative outlet.

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Grozev, an investigator at the collective investigative project Bellingcat, became Putin’s personal enemy for the investigation into the 2014 Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 crash, which took about 300 lives. The passenger aircraft was shot down by the Russian military while flying over eastern Ukraine.

He also investigated the poisoning of Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny in 2020 by Russian intelligence agents with the Novichok nerve chemicals, which are banned worldwide and uncovered a Russian spy network that participated in the poisoning of the Skripal family in the United Kingdom with the same prohibited chemical weapons.

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