A turbulent Olympic saga is currently unfolding in Paris after a 40-year-old Russian national was arrested on suspicion of trying to “destabilise” the Games. News broke that this man was actually a Russian spy.was arrested for posing as a chef and drunkenly telling people about his mission.
The man at the center of the case is Kirill Griaznov, whose identity was revealed in a joint report by Russia’s The Insider, France’s Le Monde and Germany’s Der Spiegel. The three media outlets described Griaznov as an agent of Russia’s FSB (the FBI’s equivalent), living a double life in Paris and currently facing 30 years in prison for plotting to stage an act against the Olympic opening ceremony.
Arrest
To understand exactly what’s going on, we need to start from the end. On Tuesday, French police announced the arrest of a 40-year-old Russian man on suspicion of trying to “destabilise” the Olympics.Police didn’t provide much information about what “destabilizing” meant, but the word carried weight because police said the man could face up to 30 years in prison if convicted.
This is serious. A 30-year prison sentence is big Sentences in France tend to be much lighter than in the United States: murder is the only charge that typically carries a 30-year sentence, while membership in a terrorist organization plotting terrorist attacks against France carries a sentence of 10 to 20 years.
Police say not only is this man facing 30 years in prison, but he will do not have Terrorists. Whatever was going on was serious, and they didn’t want to reveal what was going on.
First report
Shortly after the man was arrested, France24 provided further details.A source close to the investigation told the outlet that the man was involved in espionage, including passing important information about the Olympics to foreign powers.
The source said an investigation had been launched into “the passing of classified information to a foreign country in order to incite hostility in France,” adding that the offence could be punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
The source was quick to add that the information was not of a terrorist nature, so it was unclear what information was given to whom and what that information might be used for. However, it has been speculated that the man was a spy for the Russian government, and this could have been used in an overt ploy to sow discord around the Olympics.
France24 points to recent attempts to manipulate public opinion in support of Ukraine during the Russian invasion, as well as the arrest in October of two Moldovan international athletes for spray-painting a Star of David on a building, suspected to be a Russian FSB operation aimed at stoking anti-Semitic sentiment amid Israel’s war with Hamas.
Similar actions surrounding the Olympic opening ceremony would certainly fit the criteria as “destabilizing” the Olympics without being terrorist in nature.
Who is Kirill Gryaznov?
It wasn’t until Thursday that the man’s identity was revealed in a multinational report, and from there events began to develop rapidly.
The first public records of Griaznov date back to the early 2000s, when he was a lawyer in Russia. A graduate of law school in his hometown of Perm, he practiced law in Russia for several years before taking a strange turn.
Griaznov left Russia and moved to Paris in 2010 to enroll in Le Cordon Bleu, arguably the most prestigious chef training school in the world, where he began a new life as a culinary enthusiast. They also have an Instagram account where they post only photos of food.learning different cooking techniques and realizing his dream of becoming a chef.
Now, in itself, there is nothing strange or suspicious about someone deciding to change careers like this. Such career crises are quite common, especially when, like Griaznov’s, someone switches from analytical to artistic work. But it’s not so common for such a change to happen when you have classified military documents in your mailbox.
According to information obtained in the investigation report, in 2009, Gryaznov had obtained documents related to Major Andrei Belyashov, a special forces officer who fought in the Second Chechen War. To complicate things further, the chef was in regular contact with known intelligence agents around the world.
All this happened while he was still a self-proclaimed aspiring chef in Paris, never mentioning his life as a lawyer in Russia or his connections to the Russian government. As for his new life, everyone just assumed Griaznov was a Russian guy who moved to Paris to become a chef.
In 2011, he moved from Paris to Courchevel in the French Alps, where he worked as an intern at K2, a Michelin-starred restaurant frequented by Russian oligarchs and elites. Going from inexperienced chef to student to Michelin-starred restaurant in one year is pretty unusual, but Griaznov did it.
For the next few years, he worked in restaurants and traveled the world under the pretext of trying international cuisine. This is noteworthy because in recent years, the FSB and GRU (Russia’s equivalent of the CIA) have increasingly used “chef” cover for their spies as an easy and plausible cover for traveling abroad.
In 2019, Gryaznov returned to Russia briefly to compete on a reality dating show. Choose Me,model Single manThere, Gryaznov introduced himself as a “businessman and restaurateur,” completing his transformation from lawyer to chef.
Drunken Spy
At this point, it’s unclear how much information Gryaznov obtained for the Russian government, but we do know that alcohol played a role in his downfall. After a visit to Russia in early May, Gryaznov was due to return to Paris via Turkey, but he became so drunk that he lost his memory and was not allowed to board the connecting flight.
Rather than wait, Griaznov took a taxi to Bulgaria, where he owns a seaside property. While there, he was having a drink on the beach and started chatting with some neighbors. At this point, the drunk spy announced that he was on a special mission to disrupt the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, and to prove it, he showed his neighbors his FSB ID, solidifying his status as a spy.
He was then reported to the French police, who began to monitor Griaznov.
“Before flying to Paris, Gryaznov called his FSB superiors to tell them the operation was going well. Gryaznov even said he had recruited “one more Moldovan from Chisinau.”
Gryaznov was arrested just days before the opening ceremony, where there was solid evidence that he was planning events to destabilize the Olympics and undermine the French government.
Why would Russia want to disrupt the Opening Ceremony?
It is unclear, but Russia is at odds with France and the International Olympic Committee over many things. Russia is openly hostile towards the IOC, which has made Russia compete under a different flag due to its past doping scandals and its invasion of Ukraine. As for France, Russia has openly criticized all NATO countries for their involvement in the sanctions against Ukraine.
Bringing France into disrepute on the world stage or disrupting the IOC’s plans would make both organisations look vulnerable, something Russia has done historically and established through its international intelligence services.
What is clear is that whatever plan there was to disrupt the opening ceremony has been completely foiled: the disclosure makes it impossible for the Russian government to successfully mount a campaign during the opening ceremony, and if there was any attempt, it would be obvious who was behind it.
Some say this is just the first of many outlandish reports and plans surrounding the 2024 games.
