Bulgarian investigative journalist Christo Grozev, who has been declared wanted by Moscow, fears that he will not be safe if he returns to Bulgaria. In a video conference on Thursday, Grozev told the Security Services Control Committee in the Bulgarian National Assembly that where he is currently with his family, he is protected by the police round the clock.
He was answering a question by MP Ivaylo Mirchev. It was Mirchev and Atanas Atanassov who invited Grozev to the hearing.
Grozev, who works for the investigative website Bellingcat.com, pointed to massive infiltration of new Russian special service agents into Bulgaria, on account of which he would be greatly endangered if he came to stay in the country.
He said there is no official information about why Russia has put him on a nationwide wanted persons' list, but he speculated that this may have been done under the Russian wartime disinformation law.
The Internal Affairs Ministry in Moscow has said that the Bulgarian is wanted for violating Russia's Criminal Code.
Grozev reasoned that if the wartime disinformation law has been invoked against him, this means that the Russian authorities are after him for his work as a journalist, more specifically, for one of his most recent investigations which concerned 33 members of a secret agency of the Russian Defence Ministry. The agency is in charge of programming the flight of cruise missiles, which, Grozev said, have killed many citizens and have destroyed energy infrastructure in Ukraine.
"If so, the matter of my protection goes beyond my personal interest, considering that a Russian law targeting Russian media has been invoked for the first time against a citizen and a media outside Russia," Grozev said.
"This is an attack against free journalism outside Russia," he commented, adding that if his guess is right, any journalist is at risk of being included on Russia's nationwide wanted persons' list.
He said that the State Agency for National Security (SANS) is the only entity in Bulgaria with which he has been in contact over his "wanted" status in Russia. SANS reportedly expressed concern for his safety. Grozev said he has no information other than what is publicly known about any actions taken by the Bulgarian government in his case.
Taking a question by MP Daniel Mitov about what steps Bulgaria should take, Grozev said it will be good for the country's reputation if it manages to show that his case has implications for the rights of all European journalists, including people working with Russian independent media based in Europe.
He estimated that the law on censorship relevant to the Ukraine war has sent more than 150 Russian journalists out of Russia. Others have made unsuccessful attempts to flee and are now in jail, and there are people under investigation. Grozev said he is the only citizen of a country other than Russia or Ukraine to be named on the blacklist.
/NZ/
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