Russian Digest
Top stories I'm keeping an eye on!
Russian governor announces 'counter-terrorist operation' in Belgorod Oblast, claims casualties
Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of Russia's Belgorod Oblast, announced a "counter-terrorist operation" in the region on May 22 amid reported attacks by Russian anti-government groups.
During such operation, the Russian authorities can increase ID checks and law enforcement presence on the streets, force locals to leave certain areas, and shut down industrial facilities that use explosive, radioactive, chemically, and biologically dangerous substances.
Earlier the same day, the Russian Volunteer Corps, allegedly fighting on Ukraine's side, claimed its members conducted combat operations in the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine.
A similar group, the Freedom of Russia Legion, said it was "returning home" to Russia and urged Russian citizens not to resist their arrival. Later, the group reported capturing the settlements of Kozinka and Gora-Podol and starting an assault on Grayvoron town in the Belgorod region.
According to Gladkov, three people were purportedly injured in Grayvoron as a result of what he called an attack by a Ukrainian sabotage-reconnaissance group. He previously claimed two people had been wounded in a strike on a village near Grayvoron.
The Kyiv Independent is unable to independently verify these claims.
The Kremlin's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, as cited by Russian state-owned news agency TASS that Russia's dictator Vladimir Putin had already been informed of the incident. Peskov added that Russian forces were working to "push out" the "sabotage group" from the region.
Andrii Yusov, a spokesperson for Ukraine's military intelligence, confirmed the operation to Ukrainian news outlet Suspilne, saying it aims "to liberate these territories from Putin's regime and push back the enemy to create a certain security zone for protecting Ukrainian civilians."
Yusov then told CNN that the units that had crossed the border were "part of defense and security forces" in Ukraine, but "in Russia, they are acting as independent entities."
The Ukrainian leadership has "nothing to do" with May 22 events in Belgorod Oblast, according to Mykhailo Podoliak, an advisor to the head of Ukraine's Presidential Office.
In Belgorod, a drone attacked the building of the FSB
In Belgorod, a drone dropped an explosive device on the building of the regional FSB, writes the pro-Kremlin telegram channel Rybar. According to him, the Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was also attacked.
The local public reported a powerful explosion in the city center and the blocking of Preobrazhenskaya Street, where the regional branch of the FSB is located. Firefighters and emergency services arrived at the scene.
There were no comments from local authorities regarding the explosion. Meanwhile, the governor of the Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said that drones attacked two private residential buildings in Grayvoron. A fire broke out as a result of the release of explosive devices. Another blow hit the administrative building in the village of Borisovka. According to the head of the region, there were no casualties.
In the morning, a sabotage and reconnaissance group from Ukraine, assembled from fighters of the Freedom of Russia Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps, penetrated into the Graivoronsky district of the Belgorod region.
The situation was reported to President Vladimir Putin. The Russian Armed Forces, along with the border service, the National Guard, and the FSB, were involved in the "liquidation" and "squeezing out" of the DRG.
8 civilians and 8 military personnel were wounded. Local residents began to be evacuated from the epicenter of events, and then a counter-terrorist operation regime was introduced in the Belgorod region and the Internet and mobile communications began to be jammed.
At least 39 saboteurs were killed and five more were taken prisoner, Baza wrote. Neither the RDK nor the "Legion" Freedom of Russia" reported losses in their ranks, but they boasted of an armored personnel carrier taken out as a trophy. The Russian Defense Ministry did not comment on the situation.
Russian state media: 'Majority' of residents flee Belgorod Oblast villages along border
Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia's Belgorod Oblast, told Russian state news agency RIA Novosti on May 22 that the "majority" of residents in the border villages of Russia's Belgorod Oblast, including the town of Grayvoron, have fled.
"We are currently completing a house-to-house inspection of the bordering villages and the town of Grayvoron. The majority of the population has left the area. For those who don't have the means, we are assisting with transportation, and for those who have the means, they are leaving in their own vehicles," Gladkov said.
https://kyivindependent.com/russian-state-media-residents-of-belgorod-oblast-villages-flee/
Vladimir Solovyov has a secret family with two children who were born in the US - investigation
Companions of Alexei Navalny released an investigation into the propagandist Vladimir Solovyov. According to the authors, Solovyov has a secret family with two children from basketball player Svetlana Abrosimova.
The athlete owns a 650-meter villa in Sochi for half a billion rubles, but information about this was removed from Rosreestr. On neighboring plots, there is the house of the wife of General Sergei Surovikin, one of the commanders of Putin's army in Ukraine, the house of the son of the Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, as well as the villa of the ex-head of the FSB Support Service. Information about the owners of these villas was also removed from Rosreestr, in the extracts the Russian Federation was named as the owner of elite real estate. To establish who are the real owners of the villas, the investigators were able to use data from the developer.
Quote from the text of the investigation : “Maybe Svetlana is actually not only a former basketball player, but also a top-secret employee of the FSB or the GRU with the rank of general? Maybe she is an employee of the Ministry of Defense and in the break between running a YouTube channel, she secretly commands a division in the Donbass? Why is Svetlana Abrosimova, just an athlete who ended her career long ago, so protected by the state? Why did the Russian state literally equate her with the Patrushev and Surovikin families?”
According to investigators, Svetlana Abrosimova is the mistress of Vladimir Solovyov (he is officially married and has 8 children from different marriages). This is supported by data on shared trips, joint doctor visits, and the services of the same chauffeur. In 2017, Abrosimova gave birth to two daughters in the United States, their middle name is Vladimirovna. Those born in the US automatically receive citizenship, but moreover, Svetlana Abrosimova herself has an American passport, the investigators found data about it in the database of flights.
“We talked with several people from Solovyov’s entourage, and everything was confirmed to us - he really has a secret family for a long time, two children, and he often appears in that very super-elite house in Sochi. There are few public photos of Solovyov and Abrosimova, but to this day he comments on her basketball games, invites her on the air and reposts posts on social networks, ”the authors of the investigation write.
‘Verified’ Twitter accounts share fake image of ‘explosion’ near Pentagon, causing confusion
A fake image purporting to show an explosion near the Pentagon was shared by multiple verified Twitter accounts on Monday, causing confusion and leading to a brief dip in the stock market. Local officials later confirmed no such incident had occurred.
The image, which bears all the hallmarks of being generated by artificial intelligence, was shared by numerous verified accounts with blue check marks, including one that falsely claimed it was associated with Bloomberg News.
“Large explosion near the Pentagon complex in Washington DC. – initial report,” the account posted, along with an image purporting to show black smoke rising near a large building.
The account has since been suspended by Twitter. It was unclear who was behind the account or where the image originated.
Under owner Elon Musk, Twitter has allowed anyone to obtain a verified account in exchange for a monthly payment. As a result, Twitter verification is no longer an indicator that an account represents who it claims to represent.
The false reports of the explosion also made their way to air on a major Indian television network. Republic TV reported that an explosion had taken place, showing the fake image on its air and citing reports from the Russian news outlet RT. It later retracted the report when it became clear the incident had not taken place.
Read More:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/22/tech/twitter-fake-image-pentagon-explosion/index.html
Senior Russian Official Dies After Privately Bemoaning ‘Fascist’ Invasion
Russia’s Deputy Science Minister Pyotr Kucherenko has died months after a prominent journalist recalled him criticizing the invasion of Ukraine in private conversations.
Kucherenko, 46, fell seriously ill on board a flight returning from Cuba on Saturday, Russia’s Science and Higher Education Ministry said Sunday.
The flight made an emergency landing in southern Russia but doctors who arrived onboard were unable to save the official.
Kucherenko’s family linked his death to a heart condition but declined to elaborate pending a forensic examination scheduled for Wednesday, according to the state-run broadcaster Zvezda.
Roman Super, an award-winning independent journalist and documentary filmmaker, said he had spoken with Kucherenko in the minister’s office “a few days” before the journalist left Russia in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine last year.
The two reportedly discussed Super’s relocation plans, Kucherenko’s inability to leave Russia, and his own opposition to Moscow’s invasion.
“It’s impossible [for me to leave Russia], they confiscate our passports. And there’s no world that would be happy to see a deputy Russian minister after this fascist invasion,” Super recalled Kucherenko saying.
Read More:
Germany, Hungary spar as tensions mount over blocked Ukraine aid
Germany’s foreign minister argued with her Hungarian counterpart during a meeting as Budapest holds up military funds over a dispute with Kyiv.
Germany and Hungary quarreled Monday during a foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels over the role a controversial Hungarian bank is playing in Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to four diplomats familiar with the exchange.
The bank, OTP, has become a focal point for officials in recent days as Hungary is refusing to approve more EU military aid for Ukraine until Kyiv removes the company from a “war sponsors” list it maintains. Diplomats also say the dispute is delaying new Russia sanctions.
When Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó reiterated Budapest’s stance on Monday during the closed-door gathering, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock shot back, according to the diplomats, who spoke anonymously to describe the exchange.
They said she cited unspecified reports that OTP recognizes the Russian-occupied territories of Luhansk and Donetsk — contravening international law — and has extended credit lines to Russian soldiers.
Read More:
https://www.politico.eu/article/tensions-mount-behind-closed-doors-as-hungary-blocks-ukraine-aid/
General Staff: Bakhmut remains 'epicenter' of fighting
There were 25 clashes between Ukrainian and Russian forces along the front line on May 22, including Bakhmut, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces reported in its evening update.
Bakhmut and Maryinka remain the "epicenter" of fighting, according to the General Staff.
After a 10-month-long siege, Wagner mercenary group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed complete control of Bakhmut on May 21.
The Kyiv Independent reported on May 22 that Bakhmut had effectively been occupied by Russian troops. While it has yet to be confirmed by the Ukrainian government, it is evident based on both official statements and those made by soldiers on the ground to the Kyiv Independent.
However, Ukrainian forces are still engaged in combat around Bakhmut, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar reported on May 22. Ukrainian forces seem to be gaining initiative on the flanks of the city, threatening to encircle the occupying Russian forces.
Additionally, the General Staff wrote on May 22 that Ukrainian forces carried out eight air strikes on May 22 in areas with concentrations of Russian forces and military equipment, as well as two air strikes against anti-aircraft missile complexes.
Three areas with concentrations of Russian military equipment, three ammunition depots, 11 artillery systems, and a radar station were hit.
https://kyivindependent.com/general-staff-10/
U.S. Says Russia's Wagner Group Is Seeking To Transit Military Equipment Through Mali
The U.S. State Department on Monday said Russian mercenary force Wagner Group is trying to obscure its efforts to acquire military equipment for use in Ukraine, adding that Washington has been informed that Wagner is seeking to transit material acquisitions to aid Russia in the war through Mali.
“There are indications that Wagner has been attempting to purchase military systems from foreign suppliers and route these weapons through Mali as a third party. We have not seen as of yet any indications that these acquisitions have been finalized or executed, but we are monitoring the situation closely,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters.
Biden’s shift on F-16s for Ukraine came after months of internal debate
President Joe Biden’s decision to allow allies to train Ukrainian forces on how to operate F-16 fighter jets — and eventually to provide the aircraft themselves — seemed like an abrupt change in position but was in fact one that came after months of internal debate and quiet talks with allies.
Biden announced during last week’s Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima, Japan, that the U.S. would join the F-16 coalition. His green light came after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spent months pressing the West to provide his forces with American-made jets as he tries to repel Russia’s now 15-month-old grinding invasion.
Long shadowing the administration’s calculation were worries that such a move could escalate tensions with Russia. U.S. officials also argued that learning to fly and logistically support the advanced F-16 would be difficult and time-consuming.
But over the past three months, administration officials shifted toward the view that it was time to provide Ukraine’s pilots with the training and aircraft needed for the country’s long-term security needs, according to three officials familiar with the deliberations who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
Read More:
https://apnews.com/article/biden-ukraine-f16-decision-russia-64538af7c10489d7c2243dadbad31008
Series: Putin's henchmen in Denmark
She forced her way into a Danish party. Now she rages against Denmark on Russian state television
Did a pro-Russian activist try to infiltrate the Liberal Alliance? This is the third episode of a hitherto untold story about Russian activities in Denmark
The woman stands up with a smile, straightens her hair, and walks up to the lone chair on stage. A studio host in a sharp blue suit introduces her as she settles down.
"She is an expert in Europe," he says. The audience claps.
The program is called Open Air and is broadcast on the nationwide Russian television station TV-Zvezda, which is owned and operated by the Russian Ministry of Defense. The name means the Star. On the wall in the studio hangs a gigantic one of its kind – the logo of the Russian army.
In the hour-and-a-half-long program, journalists, defense correspondents, documentarians, publicists, and bloggers discuss various major political matters. This November day in 2022, one of the topics is Germany. Is the country on the brink of a collapse similar to Euromaidan in Ukraine? And is Nazism on the way again?
This is what the woman is invited to enlighten the viewers. But before she answers the questions, she starts talking about Denmark - and about the oppression of the population that she believes is taking place there.
Shortly before, the Danish Parliament passed the so-called Influence Act, which allows people to be punished with up to 12 years in prison for statements on social media, she says. A law that, according to her, is interpreted very broadly and can be applied in any situation. The woman adds that people in Denmark who write pro-Russian posts are harassed or socially ostracized.
"This subject is familiar to me," she says. "Because I have lived in Denmark for many years."
This is the third section in our coverage of Russian activities in Denmark. Previously, we revealed the identities of 12 suspected intelligence officers who operated under the guise of being diplomats at the Russian embassy in Copenhagen. We have uncovered a possible recruitment attempt for a Danish political advisor with networks and insight into Greenlandic politics. And we have uncovered how a sanctioned Russian organization has swarmed the Technical University of Denmark.
Now we take a closer look at a group of pro-Russian activists who have been operating in this country for years. And especially one of them: Zenia Grynberg, the woman from the program on TV-Zvezda.
Because not only has she lived in Denmark - which she still does on paper. She has been extremely politically active in this country.
The story here is thus the story of a woman who has called on the Russian state to finance her work and expressed that the Port of Aarhus is a legitimate military target. A woman who for a number of years surrounded prominent Danish politicians as well as conspiracy theorists and peace activists. And it is not least a story that raises the question:
Did pro-Russian forces try to infiltrate the Liberal Alliance?
The dictaphone and the dissident
Retired Brigadier General Michael Clemmesen stood with his arms crossed and listened. It was an early March day in 2015, and the Danish Defense Academy in Copenhagen held an all-day conference on the war in Ukraine - a year after Russia's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. The brigadier general was one of the speakers at the conference together with military personnel and experts from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands.
The conference was well received with presentations on Ukraine and Russia's internal political relations, the influence of far-right movements on the conflict, military and security policy perspectives, the capacities of the warring parties, and, finally, the presentation "Russia's new imperialism - what can we expect?"
However, three people in the audience annoyed the brigadier general. One man and two women. He insisted that the three people were clearly together, even though they had positioned themselves separately in the audience. Under the guise of asking a question, the man stood up and gave a soliloquy about Russia, seconded by the two women.
Michael Clemmesen had not experienced anything like this since the Cold War. It seemed to him that the three people were schooled, as in the old days it was experienced with Soviet-loyal communists.
"It was almost creepy," says Michael Clemmesen today.
If he had still been active in the Armed Forces and not retired, he would have reported the episode, he says.
Today, he can name without hesitation the three people who, in his opinion, tried to sabotage the conference.
The man who gave the soliloquy was Jesper Gødvad Larsen. A man who had later been in the media several times because of his pro-Russian views, most recently in DR's documentary series Shadow War, and who had already traveled to Donetsk and Luhansk in 2015 and appeared as a guest on the pro-Russian TV channel Novorossiya TV.
We have tried in vain to get him to speak.
One of the two women who attended the conference with Jesper Gødvad Larsen says that she does not remember the details. Just that the speaker got mad at the many questions and forbade them to speak.
The other woman who participated was Zenia Grynberg. She is "known in the environment" of Danes who deal professionally with Russia, says senior researcher Flemming Splidsboel from the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS).
He himself remembers meeting her only once. It was in connection with an event where Splidsboel was among the presenters. When Splidsboel arrived, he was approached by Zenia Grynberg. She apparently didn't have a ticket for the sold-out event and was "absolutely frantic" about not being able to get in, he recalls.
"She asked if she could come up with me. I said I couldn't, because it was with tickets and everything," says Flemming Splidsboel.
"Then she pulled out a dictaphone and asked if I wanted to record it."
Flemming Splidsboel is convinced that it was not his presentation that Zenia Grynberg was interested in that day. The main speaker was the well-known Russian journalist and opposition activist Roman Dobrokhotov.
Flemming Splidsboel took it to mean that Zenia Grynberg's purpose was actually to record what the Kremlin critic said. A venture he refused to help her with.
The artist
The mood was high in the basement under Axelborg. It was election night in 2011, and the participants in the Liberal Alliance's election party had something to celebrate. The party, which had emerged from the sad remnants of the New Alliance, managed a whopping five percent of the vote.
A team of new politicians could look forward to taking their place in Christiansborg. One of them was the former Olympic shot putter Joachim B. Olsen. A photo from the party shows how he lit up with a smile. Next to him, a woman can be seen standing and signaling. It's Zenia Grynberg.
Joachim B. Olsen still remembers her clearly. Zenia Grynberg was "very, very active" in the party and participated in virtually all events, both formal and informal, he says. Joachim B. Olsen could not understand how she found the time to always be with him. Zenia Grynberg was also eager to make proposals for the party's policy, but they were always "crooked,"
"I especially remember that I wondered what she did for a living," says Joachim B. Olsen, who is now a political commentator on BT.
To people in the party, Zenia Grynberg presented herself as an artist. But it never got more concrete than that, says Joachim B. Olsen.
Zenia Grynberg has set up several companies in Denmark. But our review of the accounts does not reveal what she actually lived on. From 2008 she ran the company CPH-ART Publication. In the first years, there was a small deficit and virtually no income in the company. In 2011, it was stated in the annual accounts that the company had "fixed assets" worth over DKK 160,000. The notes to the accounts stated that the company's assets consisted of a "website with content" and that her company's intangible assets consisted of "fans and friends on Facebook" to be used for marketing campaigns and networking.
The following year, these values were stated at DKK 176,000, and the following year again the company was dissolved after bankruptcy. At that time, Zenia Grynberg had founded the personally owned small company Zenia Kommunikation, which is still active. Here, too, we find no trace of significant income.
The EU skeptic
We are not quite sure when Zenia Grynberg appeared in the Liberal Alliance. But on social media, she appears as an activist in the party from 2011. Posts and photos show that she - together with Jesper Gødvad Larsen, among others - participated in poster hangings for the party's candidates, and she participated several times in the party's national meeting. In 2013, she was on the podium.
Another person who remembers Zenia Grynberg from the Liberal Alliance is the party's former member of parliament, Christina Egelund, who is today the Minister of Education and Research for the Moderates. On social media, we find, among other things, a post that indicates that they, in the company of several other members of the Liberal Alliance, have been together at the Toga Vinstue pub, where politicians, Christiansborg journalists, and other politically interested people often come.
The first time the two met each other was, as far as Christina Egelund remembers, in 2014. It was in connection with Egelund running as a leading candidate for the European Parliament.
"She was at an event where I was supposed to speak, and she was very aggressive towards me because she thought I was too pro-European," says Christina Egelund.
"She argued that I and the party should be much more critical of the EU."
Christina Egelund says that she perceived Zenia Grynberg as "really crazy." Therefore, according to Christina Egelund, the insistent woman with the Russian background did not succeed in convincing anyone in the party that they should listen to her views.
However, it is clear that at that time there was an EU-critical trend in the party. This is evident, among other things, from Simon Emil Ammitzbøll's book Insider, the early group chairman of the Liberal Alliance's parliamentary group and later Minister of Economy and the Interior in the VLAK government. Here he says that strong forces in the Liberal Alliance, including the Saxo Bank founder and sponsor of the party Lars Seier Christensen, wanted an electoral alliance with the Danish People's Party in the run-up to the European Parliament elections in 2014 in order to "signal skepticism towards the EU."
Precisely Lars Seier Christensen can also be connected directly to Zenia Grynberg. In 2013, he shared a Facebook post from her with his thousands of followers. In the post, Grynberg characterized a critical article by the Politiken writer Kristian Madsen about, among others, Lars Seier Christensen's fondness for the author Ayn Rand as "falsehoods, distortions and fallacies" that aimed to "feed more hatred, as socialists always do".
On Facebook, we also find photos from an event at Saxo Bank, which Zenia Grynberg uploaded in 2013. In the photos, she is seen in conversation with the chairman of the liberal think tank Ayn Rand Institute, while Lars Seier Christensen stands a few meters away.
In an email reply to us, Lars Seier Christensen writes that he has met Zenia Grynberg a "few times quite briefly at public meetings" and that he "doesn't really" know her.
Information warfare costs
Around the time when Zenia Grynberg was active in the Liberal Alliance, she sought out Russian institutions and asked for financial support.
She herself later, in June 2022, described this in an article in the Russian media Regnum, which bears the heading "Why Russia is losing the information war in Europe."
In 2014, after the first phase of the war in Ukraine had broken out, Zenia Grynberg began to convey information to the Danish public that was "not colored by a Western point of view about what was going on at the time in Donbas," as she puts it in the post. Among other things, she created several Facebook pages and an online media called Radar-media.
In the post in Regnum, Zenia Grynberg describes how she sought out the Russian embassy in Copenhagen and the Russian Center for Culture and Science, which is run by the now-sanctioned organization Rossotrudnichestvo. But the center allegedly rejected "any political activity". And although the Russian embassy met her with an "exceptionally good attitude, gratitude and sympathy", according to Zenia Grynberg, it did not support "the information work itself".
"And this is at a time when former friends and colleagues accused me and my friends of working for Putin. If only!" writes Zenia Grynberg.
In another post, however, she writes that Rossotrudnichestvo's Danish branch was no more apolitical than that "Copenhagen was one of the few places in Europe where practical work was carried out to establish relations with scientific, academic and cultural circles" and " in parliament and various municipal and state structures.'
The demand for funding from the Russian state is a recurring theme in Zenia Grynberg's contributions to the Russian public.
In another post in Regnum, she criticizes, for example, that the Russian authorities have not taken the initiative to support Jesper Gødvad Larsen's work as a "freelance journalist" who exposes the "manipulations" and falsifications of Western media.
And in a third post, she writes:
"We can see how much America is investing in the information war with Russia. It is completely incomprehensible why the Russian leadership believes that the information war can be won for free.'
The DF politician
Zenia Grynberg's involvement in the Liberal Alliance apparently stopped around 2015. Instead, she sought out other allies. Among other things in the left-wing peace movement.
On 11 September 2015, for example, Zenia Grynberg spoke at a demonstration against Danish participation in the war and the purchase of new fighter planes on the Town Hall Square in Copenhagen, which was organized by, among others, the organization Fredsvagten. In a video recording from the event, Zenia Grynberg stands on stage wearing St. George's ribbon, the black and orange symbol of Russia's victory over Nazi Germany, which since 2014 has been used as a sign of support for the pro-Russian operatives in eastern Ukraine.
On Facebook, we also find a photo from 2016, where Zenia Grynberg stood on the street with a sign advertising the conspiracy theorist Niels Harrit's lecture 'The Seventh Tower.' But Zenia Grynberg had apparently not given up on making contact with the established political system.
In an SMS reply to us, the former member of the Danish Parliament Marie Krarup confirms that she knows both Zenia Grynberg and Jesper Gødvad Larsen. Marie Krarup has not answered our follow-up questions about their closer relationship. But on social media, we can see that they have been in contact.
In December 2016, a Finnish politician and businessman wrote a blog post that was published on the site Russian Insider. The post was illustrated with a graphic where the EU flag was lifted aside to reveal a Nazi flag. The blog post was about how "the EU and the USA are in the process of establishing a totalitarian regime and speech control on the basis of false accusations of Russian propaganda and the fake news scam."
Zenia Grynberg linked to the blog post on Facebook with the comment, "A bit about the so-called Russian propaganda." The following day, Marie Krarup, who at the time was a member of parliament for the Danish People's Party, shared Zenia Grynberg's post with the comment "interesting thoughts." Marie Krarup has also asked questions in the Folketing, which were based on Jesper Gødvad Larsen's work. Among other things, critical questions about the EU unit East Stratcom, which is tasked with combating Russian disinformation.
For a number of years, Marie Krarup has distinguished herself with her views in relation to Russia. Among other things, it caused a stir when in 2016 she characterized the EU as a greater threat to Denmark than Vladimir Putin. In 2022, Marie Krarup left the Danish People's Party. This was due, among other things, she explained in a Facebook post at the time, to a desire to be able to "stand freely in the debate about Russia, NATO, and Ukraine."
"An agent of influence"
"I survived the fascist arson in Odesa."
In 2018, a man named Oleg Muzyka came to the fore in Dagbladet Arbejderen. In an interview with the avowedly communist media, he gave his version of the events in the Ukrainian port city on May 2, 2014, where 48 people lost their lives.
A bloody incident that followed some eventful months in Ukraine's history with the Euromaidan protests, the resignation of President Yanukovych, Russia's annexation of Crimea, and declarations of independence by Kremlin operatives.
At the time, Odesa's residents were divided between supporters of the Ukrainian unitary state and avowed federalists who – in line with what the Russian government advocated publicly at the time – wanted to transform Ukraine into a confederation of regions with a high degree of autonomy.
According to Muzyka, he was in the federalists' protest camp when "an army of fascists and football hooligans" came against them. Muzyka said that he and the other federalists sought refuge in the nearby House of Trade Unions, after which "Nazis and fascists" threw Molotov cocktails through the windows while the police watched passively.
Only when the fire had died down late in the evening did the police get out of their cars and "enter the building, where they arrested 67 of Oleg Muzyka's comrades" and charged them with "having created 'mass disturbance leading to death," wrote Arbejderen, adding that "the police leadership in Odesa is politically on the same wavelength as the government in Kyiv."
It was Zenia Grynberg's merit that the article was published. She arranged Oleg Muzyka's visit to Denmark, arranged the interview agreement, and acted as interpreter, just as she took the initiative for a meeting with Danish youth politicians. At least she wrote that herself in an article in the Russian media Regnum in May 2022. Arbejderen's responsible editor, Anders Sørensen, says that he cannot deny that it is correct, but that no one in the media today can remember, how the interview came about.
Oleg Muzyka was the only source in the Worker's article. It is otherwise disputed what exactly happened that day in Odesa. Among others, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OCHCR) has a different interpretation of the sequence of events. According to the OCHCR, the clashes in Odesa that day actually began when about 300 "well-organized" federalists attacked a march of supporters of the Ukrainian unitary state. The UN agency's staff observed federalists throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails.
In the following hours, clashes broke out between the two groups in central Odesa, where, according to the UN agency, both sides used firearms and several were killed. According to the OCHCR, it is correct that supporters of the unitary state then attacked the federalists' protest camp and that around 300 federalists barricaded themselves in the House of Trade Unions. But according to the UN agency, the fire in the building was caused by Molotov cocktails that "both groups threw at each other." And the police's inaction applied to "both sides," OCHCR assessed.
In her article in the Russian media Regnum in 2022, Zenia Grynberg describes the article in Arbejderen as a "practical example of information work." She points out that it will be obvious to "continue the collaboration" with Arbejderen's editorial staff by offering them "ready-made texts for publication," such as Danish translations of statements from residents of the city of Mariupol "or stories about residents of other liberated areas." Since the small media does not have the means to send correspondents to the front itself, video material "and other reliable information" in Danish will have "a good chance of being published." writes Zenia Grynberg and adds that Arbejderen is not the only possible collaboration partner in Denmark.
When we turn to Arbejderen's editor-in-charge, Anders Sørensen, and show him Zenia Grynberg's post, he is, in his own words, "absolutely amazed."
"It is uncomfortable and makes me a little nervous that something is written about us on such a platform, where she clearly intended to be able to reach out to some who work with these issues," says Anders Sørensen.
"She is quite clearly an agent of influence, or whatever we should call such a thing, for the Russian regime. And we will not turn our backs on being the media for that.'
Anders Sørensen cannot recognize the picture that Zenia Grynberg paints of Arbejderen as a media that is willing to uncritically take over finished articles. He says that he has found an email from Zenia Grynberg in the editor's email system from 2016, where she offered the media an article about "political prisoners" in Ukraine. Arbejderen refused that offer, he points out.
Anders Sørensen was not the responsible editor when the interview with Oleg Muzyka was published. But today Arbejderen would not have published that article, he says.
"I wouldn't, mainly because the situation is completely different today," he says, referring to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Anders Sørensen also admits that it was a journalistic error that Oleg Muzyka's statement was not held up against other sources' interpretation of the sequence of events.
"We would have done that today," he says.
A threat to Denmark
We have asked PET (Danish Security and Intelligence Service) for a comment on our research on Zenia Grynberg's activities in Denmark. The service will not relate to "specific persons or specific incidents," but wrote in an email reply that "there is a threat to Denmark from Russian influencing activities."
"It is a threat that PET takes seriously, and we therefore continuously follow and monitor the area and its relevant persons and actors," it reads.
Russia "primarily" uses lobbying "to promote the country's foreign and security policy interests, for example by trying to weaken the unity of NATO and the EU," writes PET.
And at the moment it is mainly about "reinforcing any disagreements on the issue of support for Ukraine in the Western populations and between the Western countries."
"Among other things, Russia seeks to promote stories that the sanctions have negative consequences for the economy of Western countries and that it is the West that bears the blame for the worsening security situation and for the risk of military escalation," writes PET.
This happens, among other things, through official Russian media platforms and social media. And it "can also take place in the physical world" through "so-called influencing agents," explains PET.
The service emphasizes that Denmark "is a democratic society where it is fully legal to sympathize with Russia," but adds:
"Such views can, however, be considered illegal lobbying if they are disseminated in collaboration with a Russian intelligence service."
A witch hunt
Officially, Zenia Grynberg lives in a three-room apartment in Nørrebro in Copenhagen, where the name is still on the mailbox. But no one answers when we call. A neighbor says that some young men apparently live in the apartment. She remembers that a woman lived there, but it was a long time ago.
On social media, it appears that Zenia Grynberg left Denmark and traveled to Moscow in 2019. It apparently happened around the time when the Danish Parliament passed the so-called Influence Act. The law that Zenia Grynberg criticized when she appeared on TV Zvezda, in 2022. The law, which was part of the then government's action plan against foreign influence operations, made it a criminal offense to cooperate with the intelligence services of other states to disseminate statements intended to "influence decision-making or the formation of public opinion."
In October 2019, Zenia Grynberg apparently boarded a flight to Copenhagen. But the visit did not last long. Three weeks later, her posting places her back in Moscow. Shortly after, she was reportedly on the move again, this time towards Avdiivka – a town that has suffered heavy losses in the fighting since the secession of Ukraine's Donetsk province.
In Russia, Zenia Grynberg lives a life of cultural events, exhibitions, and café visits. In January 2020, a Spanish media published an article about Moscow's unusually warm weather, where no snow had fallen in the city. The article was accompanied by a photo of Moscow's winter bathers, where Zenia Grynberg could be seen standing at the front of the queue by the stairs down into the cold Moscow River.
We also found pictures of Zenia Grynberg in the company of a woman who is wanted by the FBI.
In February 2020, the organization PICREADI published a report on how to strengthen Russian public diplomacy – a term that covers influencing civil society in other countries and the branding of Russia. At the official presentation of the report, Zenia Grynberg sat in the audience. The report was presented by the organization's head, Natalia Burlinova, who was later indicted by the FBI for having collaborated with the Russian intelligence service FSB.
Alongside her new life, Zenia Grynberg has started writing for several Russian online media, where she is presented as a political scientist and publicist. In addition, she has established the Telegram channel 'The Other Europe,' where she now writes daily about, among other things, Russia, the war in Ukraine, the EU, and Europe.
In this Telegram channel, in November 2022, Zenia Grynberg called on her readers to collect equipment for Russian drone operators on the front in Ukraine. In the same channel, in January of this year, she described Aarhus Harbor as a "legitimate, military target" after the American military had unloaded 600 vehicles that were going on to Poland.
According to Zenia Grynberg, it was from one of the channel's readers that she got the information about the alleged “nazification” of Germany, which she was invited to discuss on TV-Zvezda.
We have been in contact with Zenia Grynberg via the Russian social media Vkontakte and have presented her with the information in this article. She did not answer our questions but writes that it is a "witch hunt" and that she has done nothing illegal.