A wild Olympics story is currently unfolding in Paris after a 40-year-old Russian national was arrested on charges of trying to “destabilize” the games. Now there’s breaking news that the man is actually a Russian intelligence officer, who posed as a chef, and got busted because he drunkenly told people about his mission.
The man at the center of all this is Kirill Griaznov, who was identified in a coordinated reporting effort by The Insider in Russia, France’s Le Monde, and Der Spiegel in Germany. The three outlets describe Griaznov as a Russian FSB agent (the equivalent of the FBI), who lived a double-life in Paris, and now faces 30 years in prison for trying to take action against the opening ceremony of the games.
The arrest
To accurately understand what’s happening we need to start at the end. On Tuesday police in France announced they had arrested a 40-year-old Russian man on charges of trying to “destabilize” the Olympic games. That word did a lot of heavy lifting, as police didn’t give much information on what “destabilizing” meant — although they did say that the man faced 30 years in prison if found guilty.
This is significant. A prison term of 30 years is a big deal in France, a country which tends to have much more lenient sentences than in the United States. Typically the only charges which carry a 30 year sentence are murder, with being a member of a terrorist organization plotting against France carrying only a 10-to-20 year term.
It raised eyebrows when police said that not only was this man facing 30 years, but quickly added that he was not a terrorist. Whatever was happening was big, and they didn’t want to reveal what was happening.
The first report
Shortly after the man’s arrest, France24 offered more details. A source close to the investigation told the outlet that the man was involved in espionage, as he passed critical information to a foreign power about the games.
The source said an investigation was opened into “passing intelligence to a foreign power in order to arouse hostilities in France”, adding that the crime was punishable by up to 30 years in jail.
This source was quick to add that the information was not terroristic in nature, which made in unclear exactly what information had been passed, to whom, and what the information would be used for. However, it was speculated that the man had been spying for the Russian government, and this could have been used in a public stunt to sow discord around the games.
France24 notes that recent attempts have been made to manipulate public opinion on the nation’s support of Ukraine during Russia’s invasion, as well an arrest in October in which two Moldovan internationals were arrested for spray painting the star of David on buildings — a suspected Russian FSB operation designed to stoke anti-Semitic sentiment amid the Israel-Hamas war.
A similar action centered on the Olympic opening ceremony certainly fits the bill as something that would “destabilize” the games, without being terroristic in nature.
Who is Kirill Griaznov?
It wasn’t until Thursday that the man’s identity was revealed in the multi-national report, and it’s here where things take a wild turn.
The first public records of Griaznov date back to the early 2000s, when he was a lawyer in Russia. Graduating from law school in his home town of Perm — Griaznov practiced law in Russia for several years, before a bizarre personal reinvention took place.
Griaznov left Russia, moved to Paris in 2010, and enrolled at Le Cordon Bleu, arguably the most noteworthy school for chefs in the world. Here he began a new life as a food-lover, complete with an Instagram account dedicated almost exclusively to photos of food, different styles of preparation, and living his dream of becoming a chef.
Now, someone deciding to change careers like this isn’t exactly weird or suspicious on its own. People have professional crises like this all the time, especially when it comes to moving from something analytical to artistic, as Griaznov did. However, it’s not often that a change like this happens while you have classified military documents in your email box.
Information gained by in investigative report shows that in 2009 Griaznov had access to a dossier on Maj. Andrey Belyashov, a special forces officer who fought in the Second Chechen War. To compound matters the chef was in routine correspondence with other known intelligence offers in other parts of the world.
This all happened while in Paris he presented himself as a would-be chef, and never mentioned to anyone about his life as a lawyer in Russia, or that he had any contacts within the Russian government. As far as his new life went, all people assumed was that Griaznov was a man who moved from Russia to Paris to become a chef.
In 2011 he relocated from Paris to Courchevel, in the French Alps. Here he interned at K2, a Michelin-star restaurant with a deep list of diners from the Russian oligarchy and elite. Suffice it to say, it’s rather unusual for someone to move from unexperienced chef, to student, to a Michelin star restaurant in one year, yet Griaznov did just that.
For the next several years he worked at restaurants and traveled globally, all under the guise of trying food from all over the world. This is notable because in recent years the FSB and GRU (equivalent of the Russian CIA) have increasingly used “chefs” as cover for intelligence officers due to their easy, plausible cover for international travel.
In 2019 Griaznov briefly returned to Russia to compete on the reality dating show Choose Me, modeled after The Bachelor. Here Griaznov introduced himself as a “businessman and restauranteur,” completing his metamorphosis from lawyer to chef.
The drunken spy
It’s unclear at this point how much information Griaznov gained for the Russian government, though we do know that alcohol led to his downfall. Following a trip to Russia in early May, Griaznov was due to connect through Turkey on a flight back to Paris. However, he became so black-out drunk that he was not allowed on his connecting flight.
Rather than wait, Griaznov took a taxi to Bulgaria — where he owns a beachside property. During this stay he was drinking on the beach when he began talking to his neighbors. At this point the inebriated spy told them he was on a special assignment to disrupt the Paris Olympic Games opening ceremony, and to prove it further he showed his neighbors his FSB identification card, which solidified that he was a spy.
It was here he was reported to French police, who began surveillance on Griaznov.
“Before flying to Paris, Griaznov made a call to his FSB boss and informed him that the operation was on track. Griaznov even said he’d recruited “one more Moldovan from Chisinau.””
Now Griaznov has been arrested, days before the opening ceremony. A ceremony where there’s substantial evidence he was planning an event to destabilize the games and undermine the French government.
Why would Russia want to interrupt the open ceremony?
That’s unclear, but there is a lot that Russia has established conflict over, both with France and the International Olympic Committee. The nation has open hostility towards the IOC for making Russian compete under a different flag due to past doping scandals, as well as the invasion of Ukraine. As for France, Russia has publicly denounced all NATO nations for their role in sanctions over Ukraine.
Causing a black eye to France on the world stage or derailing IOC plans would make both entities seem vulnerable. This is something Russia has historically engaged in, and is established through the international intelligence community.
What is clear is that whatever plans were in place to interrupt the opening ceremony are now Those plans have now been completely derailed. With the information going public it will now be impossible for the Russian government to run a successful campaign during the ceremony, and if there are any attempts it will be patently clear who is behind it.
Something says this is just the first in a lot of wild reports and planning surrounding these 2024 games.
