‘A double operational game’ Bellingcat’s Christo Grozev refutes FSB claims about foiling Ukrainian operation to lure Russian pilots

Bellingcat’s lead Russian investigator Christo Grozev has refuted the FSB’s claims concerning his connection to an alleged Ukrainian operation to entice Russian Air Force pilots to hand over their planes. 

In a statement released on Monday, Russia’s Federal Security Service accused Ukraine’s military intelligence service (the HUR) of an operation to offer monetary rewards and citizenship in an EU country to Russian pilots in exchange for landing their aircraft at Ukrainian airfields and surrendering their planes. 

The FSB claimed that the alleged Ukrainian operation was supervised by the “NATO intelligence services.” The FSB also underscored that the Russian counter-operation managed to “obtain information that helped inflict fire damage on a number of Ukrainian military facilities.”

Segments about the counter-operation aired on Russian state-owned television channels featured footage released by the FSB. One four-minute video, first published on Zvezvda’s website, included clips that allegedly show a Russian pilot negotiating with a Ukrainian intelligence operative. 

In the video, an off-camera voice — supposedly belonging to a Ukrainian agent — offers to pay the Russian pilot up to $2 million in exchange for a military fighter jet. The pilot is also told that he could get his wife out of Russia. “We can make [sic] her a foreign passport, that is, the foreign one you want — for one of the European countries or a residency permit for this country,” the voice says. The video then shows screenshots of correspondence and photos of a Romanian passport. 

The accusations against Bellingcat’s Christo Grozev first appeared in another news segment on the state-owned television channel Russia 24. Citing the Russia 24 broadcast, RIA Novosti reported that the FSB had accused Grozev of being personally involved in the Ukrainian operation. 

Writing on Twitter on Monday, Grozev refuted the FSB’s claims, explaining that the Bellingcat team has been working on a documentary film about a vigilante operation to lure Russian pilots to surrender their planes to Ukraine. 

According to Grozev, the operation was not organized by the Ukrainian authorities, but rather “by maverick ex-operatives” Bellingcat journalists had gotten to know while investigating a botched Ukrainian sting operation to capture Russian mercenaries. 

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Grozev said that Bellingcat started out filming the negotiations between the Ukrainian recruiters and Russian pilots, and continued following the story as the original initiative devolved into “a double ‘operational game’ in which both sides were trying to extract maximum information from each other, while feeding them maximum disinfo.” Both the FSB and the Ukrainian ex-operatives eventually gave up on their operations after realizing they were being fed false promises, Grozev said.

At the same time, Grozev underscored that the FSB’s counter-operation ended up being a “serious blunder” that unintentionally compromised “dozens of [counter-intelligence] officers, their methods of operation, and their undercover assets.”

“Despite the unexpected ending (so far), we still plan to finish this crazy film,” Grozev added.

During wartime, it is not always possible for journalists to independently verify official claims, especially those made by intelligence agencies.