The executive director of the investigative website Bellingcat, journalist Christo Grozev, has been placed on Russia’s most wanted list, according to information available Monday in the database on the Russian Interior Ministry’s website.
Christo Grozev, a Bulgarian citizen born on 20 May 1969, “is wanted for violating an article of the Russian Criminal Code”, according to the same source, which did not provide further details.
Founded in July 2014 by Eliot Higgins, a British blogger, the Netherlands-based Bellingcat site specialises in journalism rooted in the analysis of data accessible to all online – Osint (“Open source intelligence” in English).
The site has investigated the crash of flight MH17, which killed 298 people in eastern Ukraine in 2014, the alleged involvement of Russian intelligence in the poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal and opposition politician Alexei Navalny.
Recently, the Bellingcat team has been focusing on the Russian military intervention in Ukraine, which began at the end of February. Russia – who has recently called Bellingcat a “threat” – has deemed the organisation “undesirable” on its territory.
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In September, Grozev, who is in charge of investigations into Moscow, told AFP in an interview that Bellingcat was “the Kremlin’s worst nightmare.”
As a case in point, on Monday, Groez posted a video showing soldiers from the Russian mercenary group Wagner insulting the Russian Armed Forces' Chief of Staff over his apparent failure to supply shells to Russian forces fighting in Bakhmut.
