Appears that - despite popular belief - some people in Serbian intel/law enforcement is not too happy with GRU's activities in Serbia. This video of a GRU officer allegedly bribing an unnamed Serbian official was leaked to news media today
The video - which was shot from multiple angles and appears to have been part of a sting or well-prepared surveillance op - does show a person exchanging bags with another person. Indeed, the person in the video is RU deputy military attache Georgiy Kleban.
The first two photos are screenshots from the surveillance video, the latter two - from open-source photographs at Embassy events. 
Microsoft's Azure face ML comparison tool, which is incredibly precise even in low-quality/non en-face enviroments, confirmed a match
His residential address in Moscow is the address of the General Military Academy - not surprising given he is a military (deputy) attache. No proof there he's GRU either. However, checking *his wife's* registered address shows something slightly more interesting.
She's registered at the dormitory of а spetznaz airborne assault military unit. We've found that often, GRU officers that are trained for future deployment under diplomatic cover, are "spared" registration at GRU addresses. Not so careful with their spouses though.
Radio Free Europe followed up on this story and was told by the Serbian Foreign Ministry that Georgiy Kleban indeed served as deputy military attache in Belgrade until June 2018. The Russian embassy has not yet responded to their queries translate.google.com/translate?sl=a…
A review of archived versions of the Russian embassy website shows that lt. col Kleban joined as assistant military attache around the beginning of 2016. That would make his departure after 2.5 years somewhat premature, compared to other asst. attaches. Possibly silently PNG-ed?
Seems indeed that he was PNG-ed. I found his son's social media profile. In August of this year, his Serbian friends wrote to him: "When are you coming back to Belgrade?" He responded, in Serbian: "I am afraid never"
If this is true, Russia had two GRU officers caught bribing officials and PNGed from what it considered traditionally "friendly" countries in the last 6 months - Serbia and Bulgaria. Not a good year for GRU.
Thanks to many retweets from people in Serbia, regional media are picking up on this story today. But let's summarize what we know vs what we don't know as of now:
We know that Kleban is a GRU officer. We know he was videotaped exchanging bags with someone in Belgrade. We know he made an unplanned departure from his post as assistant attache between June and August this year. That implies a PNG.
We don't know who the other person on the video is. We also don't know if the bag indeed contained cash, as there is no uncut continuity in the video. We also don't know, of course, who the anonymous source of the video was.
One other little known fact for context: when neighboring Bulgaria PNG-d a GRU officer recruiting a local intel official, Bulgaria tried to keep the process quiet and didn't announce names. However, another CEE Intel service leaked the spy's name to media.
My most likely hypothesis is that something similar happened in Serbia. However, it's more likely that local intel leaked. They've been known to be frazzled with GRU since the latter used Serbia to stage that botched whatever-it-was in Montenegro.
Serbian president says he has ordered an investigation into the video and the alleged recruitment incident, says there will be serious consequences if confirmed to be true. b92.net/info/vesti/ind…
Meanwhile state-owned newspaper Politika publishes scoop (no sources cited) that the video is more than a year old, and the asset Kleban exchanges bags with is "not a security official" bu likely a "private citizen who was selling commerical data". Waiting for official info today
Situation seems to be escalating. Serbian defense minister Vulin left abruptly parliament session to meet with Vucic, says "situation is very serious, in the background are attempts to distance Serbia from its policy of military neutrality." Cryptic.
Serbian security agency BIA has just confirmed the authenticity of the spy video to Serbian media.
Update: BIA also confirmed it's definitely Kleban on the video. Full details are promised after a meeting of the national security council tomorrow, Thursday.
All major Serbian newspapers tomorrow headline with the spy story. Some of them are highly critical of the very fact that this story has received coverage, claiming it's a plot to alieanate Serbia from Russia.
There seems to be a serious intra agency cold war in Serbia, with BIA essentially confirming the Russian espionage operation, while other siloviks are intent to make this look like a Western "hybrid attack on Serbia". Both seem intent on pressuring Vucic. translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?de…
Kremlin says "nothing can affect our brotherly relationship with Serbia despite Vucic opening investigation into the spy affair" google.com/amp/s/mobile.r…
With the help of Ljubomir Filipovic @ljubofil from Digital Forensic Center (Montenegro) , we may have identified the "asset" who received the bag from GRU Col. Kleban. If correct, this will be major. Can't wait for the official announcement which has been promised today.
And if we are correct (again, our identification is not forensic this time, it's based simply on body shape comparison), the recipient of the bag may be listening to Vucic's speech from ..quite close
Serb president Vucic says Lt. col Z.K. was indeed monitored by security services and known to be meeting Russian intelligence officers. He was traced to the meeting with Col Kleban on Dec 24 2018 at 18:07. BUT, he says, the video recording was not made by Serbian services.
He also cryptically said Serbian security services saw three people at the meeting location, leaving a big unknown as of who the other person/people were, and whether the asset in the video was Lt. Col Z.K.
"To our Russian counterpart, I will only say one thing. Why?", said Vucic before adding that this incident will not cause crises in relationship with Russia because "Putin ,I am sure, wasn't aware of this"
And the fun part: "Serbia has become playing ground for too many intelligence services. We must strengthen our counterintel. In the next days, some actions will be taken against foreign Intel that will be publicly visible" I guess Serbia will expell both RU and Western diplomats
