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Michael Weiss

@michaeldweiss

Jul 25, 2024 • 19 tweets • 6 min read • Read on X

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NEW: @InsiderEng and its partners @lemondefr and @derspiegel have identified the French chef arrested on suspicion of working for Russian intelligence to disrupt the Paris Olympics. Meet Kirill Griaznov, a Cordon Bleu-trained chef, reality TV star and FSB officer. We have his emails. Oh, and he's been to New York too! theins.press/en/politics/27…

The Perm-born Griaznov has resided in France for 14 years. He only decided to become a chef suddenly in 2010 after years working as a lawyer for financial services companies. While in Luxembourg, he met Lord Robert Skidelsky, a British peer. He was very excited about this and wanted to meet Skidelsky again in Moscow. Skidelsky seemed keen.

(Skidelsky was suspended from the House of Lords last year for not properly disclosing his ties to a think tank bankrolled by sanctioned Russian oligarchs. He's very critical of the UK's security assistance to Ukraine and was against Swedish and Finnish NATO membership.) thetimes.com/world/russia-u…

Griaznov's social media is awash with food porn, selfies, and reels where he goes Dr. Strange/Salt Bae on ramen. He also appeared on "Choose Me," Russia's answer to "The Bachelor," where he was described as a successful businessman and restaurateur.

Alas, all was not well here. According to his ex-girlfriends, he's got a drinking problem and the booze, so says one of them, would be his downfall. How right she was.

Griaznov was unmasked because he got tanked while trying to return to Paris from Russia via Turkey. The Turks didn't let him on the plane in Istanbul. So what did he do? He called a friend in Bulgaria to pick him up at the Turkish-Bulgarian border. The friend obliged.

Griaznov cooled his heels in St. Vlas, dined with the friend, got hammered again, and boasted of his special operation to disrupt the Olympic opening ceremonies in Paris on April 26. The friend was incredulous. So did what any deep-cover chekist would do: he whipped out his FSB ID.

Then, en route to Varna from St. Vlas, he took a call from his FSB boss and confirmed everything was on track for Paris and he'd even recruited “one more Moldovan from Chisinau." (Moldovans working for Russia were previously caught scrawling Stars of David all over Paris to ramp up fears of anti-Semitism.)

We have other evidence of his ties to the Russian special services. His brother, Dmitri, is chief of staff at the secretariat of the Belarus-Russia Union Assembly (a clearinghouse for FSB types). Dmitri he lives at the same address as Denis Sergeev, the Unit 29155 operational commander for the Skripal poisoning.

Griaznov also has a sensitive military dossier in his inbox belonging to a GRU airborne Spetsnaz colonel -- you know, the sort of thing a lawyer-cook would have hanging around in their attachments.

The FSB spy came to NYC in 2013 and appeared to stay at the Hudson Hotel in Columbus Circle. He ate at Marea, went to Carnegie Hall, took in a Knicks Game. He's also traveled around the world: Switzerland, Czechia and Bulgaria, along with shorter ones in the United Kingdom, China and India.

Here he is in Prague enjoying himself.

Contacted by Le Monde, Victor, an old friend of Griaznov can't believe it. “I know his whole family and vice-versa," Victor said. "I went to his house in Moscow and Perm. He came to France because he hates Putin and does not want to go to the front, lol."

Griaznov's decision to get into the culinary arts reminded us of another late-in-life chef we profiled and whom you may have seen in March on @60Minutes. Vitalii Kovalev, once a military engineer with clearance, was arrested after a high-speed car chase in Key West. After two years in a U.S. prison, he went back to Russia, got mobilized and killed somehow in Ukraine: theins.ru/en/politics/27…

@60Minutes .@lemondefr's story: lemonde.fr/societe/articl…

@60Minutes @lemondefr .@derspiegel's story: spiegel.de/ausland/zugrif…

And @the_ins_ru's story (in Russian): theins.ru/politika/273341

Here's a clip of Griaznov on the reality dating show.

Lonely heart in Moscow seeks Moldovans from Chisinau for exciting trip to Paris. Tell you more later.

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Michael Weiss

@michaeldweiss

Mar 13

NEW: Following the embarrassing lapses of Unit 29155, the GRU created a new, bespoke assassination and sabotage unit known as Center 795, meant to be "air-gapped" against compromise. Its top operative, Denis Alimov, is now in a jail cell in Colombia awaiting extradition to the U.S. because he used Google Translate to task his Serbian hitman. The FBI had everything in real time. And we've just burned the rest of Putin's brand new black ops squad. theins.press/en/inv/290235

The hitman, Darko Durovic, was surveilling members of the Zakaev family, Chechen dissidents living in Europe. Durovic even used search engines to look for the murder weapon, typing in "Glock 17," "Glock 21," "Glock 22" — and where to obtain a 22 in Podgorica, Montenegro. He traveled to New York as part of his tasking by Center 795's Denis Alimov, the man sitting in the clink in Bogota, a 42 year-old bodybuilder on steroids, who, judging from his Telegram posts, suffers from a common side effect of juicing: man-boobs.

Center 795 fields approximately 500 officers divided into three directorates. The organizational blueprint – corroborated by staffing spreadsheets and a separate internal org chart obtained by The Insider the — describes a fully self-contained combined-arms formation capable, in theory, of conducting independent military and intelligence operations without external support.

Many come from elite units, such as FSB Alfa, GRU Spetsnaz, Putin's FSO and Rosgvardia. A unique addition to this hodgepodge composition is a non-Russian one: the Belarusian KGB.

Read 6 tweets

Michael Weiss

@michaeldweiss

Mar 8

New with @60Minutes: A whistleblower from the Global Health Incident Cell (GHIC), the secret CIA unit that investigated Havana Syndrome, says he believes the Russian intelligence services are behind directed energy attacks on Americans. .theins.press/en/inv/290088

“John Thorne” (not his real name) had first-hand experience dealing with a cornerstone case of AHI, in Central Asia. He says the GHIC was determined to disprove AHI was real or that a foreign adversary was responsible for it.

The device the U.S. acquired over a year ago: it fires pulsed microwaves, it is portable, and it is programmable for distance and intensity. Its beams can penetrate windows and drywall. Not only does it have critical Russian components, it was purchased by U.S. operatives from a “complex Russian criminal network.”

Read 8 tweets

Michael Weiss

@michaeldweiss

Feb 10

Estonian Foreign Intelligence's annual report is out. Some highlights to follow:

Very clear message to the U.S., which seems intent on ignoring it: Russia is using "peace" talks as a tool for manipulation. While still viewing the U.S. as a main adversary, Russia's state institutions have been instructed to adopt a spirit of openness to cooperation. Why? Because restoring diplomatic relations and resuming direct flights will facilitate espionage, influence operations and the flow of sanctioned goods into Russia.

Moscow's targeting of European countries is meant to split the U.S. from its closest allies and use economic warfare -- via the proposed joint investment fund for Ukraine -- to stop Kyiv's Westward trajectory.

Read 22 tweets

Michael Weiss

@michaeldweiss

Jan 14

I read everything Dexter Filkins writes and so should you. His profile of Marco Rubio is no exception. I'll share a few highlights in this thread:

During the campaign I said J.D. Vance seemed like the sort of populist redneck a gaggle of South African tech bros might cook up in a Silicon Valley laboratory. Almost AI-generated. Anti-charismatic. Awkward in the extreme. And a hard sell absent the Trump juggernaut. Well, lookee here. Vance is not "a guy's guy" like Rubio. Trump thinks he's a bit weird, a bit wussy, and highly unlikeable. He even has buyer's remorse picking Vance as VP. The Maduro op and the past and future military action Iran show Marco's stock is up, J.D.'s is down. Vance gets to own the mess in Minnesota. Rubio gets to be viceroy of Caracas.

Here's a little something special from Sen. Mike Rounds, who not only confirms Rubio's call to his former Senate colleagues at the Halifax Security Forum last November, but emphasizes that the Dmitriev-Witkoff plan was really the Dmitriev plan: "... we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives." Indeed. And it was laundered, Rounds might have added, through a gullible press corp, which relied on Dmitriev, Witkoff and Kushner as sources (this when Witkoff played an active role in deceiving the same press corp about supposed daylight between Trump and Netanyahu on striking Iran) and didn't bother asking why the Secretary of State/NSA or CIA director were written out of a coalescing U.S. deal with Russia. Those sorts of things demand inter-agency buy-in. Instead, amateur diplomats made an end-run around the actual diplomat, and Rubio got his retaliation in by letting a group of bipartisan legislators do it for him. He then initiated a de-Russification process of Dmitriev's 28-point plan in Geneva, and lo and behold it's now a Ukrainian-coauthored 20-point plan, certified by Witkoff and Kushner and Trump in successive rounds in Florida. The Russians will inevitably reject it and more or less have already. This was very well played.

Read 7 tweets

Michael Weiss

@michaeldweiss

Jan 12

Well, well, well.

"A number of months ago, the U.S. captured a weapon that has been associated with Havana Syndrome. Both said it was seized by U.S. Special Forces during an operation...the weapon is under the Defense Department’s Intelligence & Security unit." sashaingber.substack.com/p/exclusive-us…

CNN now reports the device linked to Havana Syndrome was purchased by Homeland Security in the waning days of the Biden administration. And DoD has spent a year testing it. It has Russian components and fits in a backpack. cnn.com/2026/01/13/pol…

Two years ago, @InsiderEng, in collaboration with @60Minutes and @derspiegel, published a lengthy investigation into Havana Syndrome, and found links to GRU Unit 29155. You can read it here: theins.ru/en/politics/27…

Read 5 tweets

Michael Weiss

@michaeldweiss

Dec 8, 2025

Suggest European friends and allies read not only the National Security Strategy but also the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2026, which was published last night. It's very long, so skip to this section: rules.house.gov/sites/evo-subs…

Here, for instance, we see several amendments written in direct response to what Elbridge Colby has been doing at DoD while Pete Hegseth does chin-ups and tequila shots. Note the provision about reclassifying aid to Ukraine as needed U.S. stocks -- this cannot be done, per this draft, unless the kit is so badly needed for a contingency op, its absence could result in mission failure or loss of American lives:

Let's say Trump wants to punish Zelensky again for not wanting to forfeit Donbas by cutting intel sharing to Ukraine. He would have two days to notify Congress on this decision. And he'd have to explain why he did it and what the anticipated consequences to Ukraine would be. "Because I'm an asshole and I don't care" might not even suffice in this fast-changing political environment!

Read 8 tweets

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