He Exposed Kremlin Assassins, Now Putin Wants Him Dead: ‘Antidote’ Explores “Rock Star Journalist” Christo Grozev
How do you live when Vladimir Putin wants you dead?
That’s the dilemma facing , a man often described as a “rock star investigative journalist.” The story of how he became persona non grata — песона нон грата, if you prefer – with the Kremlin is told in the documentary , directed by , which just made its world premiere at in Copenhagen.
“Someone asked me the other day, how many people are on Putin’s kill list? And I was like, ‘I have no idea,’” Jones says as he and Grozev join Deadline at a café at the CPH:DOX hub. “But it is interesting that if you end up on their criminal wanted list… that’s a pretty good sign you’ve crossed some kind of line.”
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Director James Jones (left) with Christo Grozev in New York June 7, 2024
Arturo Holmes/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival
The line Grozev crossed was to expose the identities of hundreds of Russian spies and would-be assassins operating in the West, as part of his work for Bellingcat, the open-source investigative journalism outfit. He played a key role in Bellingcat’s investigation of the 2018 poisoning of Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the U.K., establishing the Kremlin link to the crime. That was mere prelude to his most consequential investigation – identifying the Russian officials behind the near-fatal poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei in 2020.
Christo Grozev (left) with Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in ‘Navalny’
CNN Films
No one who has seen the Oscar-winning documentary Navalny can forget the scene where Navalny, recuperated from the poisoning, phones a Russian scientist Grozev has fingered as central to the plot. Impersonating a high-ranking Russian official, Navalny gets the man to admit details of the scheme. Grozev is right there in the room with Navalny as the stunning conversation unfolds.
“It is absolutely the subtext to this film,” Jones observes, “that moment of humiliating them [the Kremlin]. That target on Christo’s back got etched in pen in that moment.”
Indeed, it was while he was making appearances for the documentary Navalny on its Oscar run that Grozev learned the Kremlin had declared him a wanted man.
‘Antidote’
Passion Pictures
“I called it a fatwa,” the Bulgarian-born journalist tells Deadline. “And I called it that on purpose because of that being the closest analogy at the time. Because the way it was announced by Russia, it had no other pragmatic purpose than to make others that would like to deliver a favor to Putin, to potentially go after me.”
This was no mere idle threat. Grozev was visiting New York in 2023 when U.S. intelligence officials warned him not to return to his home in Vienna, because a “red team” was anticipating his arrival in Austria with plans to kill or kidnap him. Not long after, authorities in the U.K. got wind of three Bulgarians following Grozev around Europe with the intent to snatch him. Katrin Ivanova, Vanya Gaberova, and Tihomir Ivanov Ivanchev – Bulgarian nationals based in London — were apprehended in February 2023 and charged with espionage.
L-R Convicted Bulgarian spies Katrin Ivanova, Vanya Gaberova, and Tihomir Ivanov Ivanchev
Crown Prosecution Service
“There was so much volume of evidence, 200,000 text messages… between the commissioners [of the plot] from Moscow and the spy team, that it took the prosecutors and the police almost a year to go through them,” Grozev notes. “After the arrest, [investigators] were discovering new things and calling me occasionally, ‘Oh, did you know that this happened?’ Or ‘Where were you on this date?’”
Just last month, Ivanova, Gaberova, and Ivanchev were convicted in a British court of conspiracy to spy.
“This was a high-level espionage operation with significant financial rewards for those involved in the spy ring,” said Frank Ferguson, chief of the Crown Prosecution Service Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division. “The group acted together, under the leadership of [confessed Bulgarian spy] Orlin Roussev, to spy on prominent individuals and locations on behalf of Russia using sophisticated methods.”
That plot against Grozev failed, but he may never learn the full circumstances of his father’s sudden death in Austria. His body was discovered in his home outside Vienna; cause of death undetermined. Towards the end of shooting on Antidote, Grozev says, “I was confronted with photos and messages from the spy ring [Ivanova, Gaberova, and Ivanchev and associates] where it became abundantly clear that they had been tasked to surveil my father as well,” he says. “And there was a photo… of the spies taking a selfie in front of my father’s apartment with an arrow pointing to the balcony saying, ‘Enter from here.’”
Director James Jones introduces ‘Antidote’ at the film’s world premiere at CPH:DOX
Matthew Carey
There are comedic elements to the spy craft practiced by the Bulgarian conspirators — beyond failing to delete incriminating text messages, that selfie, and other evidence from their phones. “It was also in a way surreal, almost funny, how we could match their text messages — which were only available to the prosecutors — to public data that they had left, like breadcrumbs,” Grozev observes. “Some of the spies were leaving Google reviews to the places that they went and complaining about the quality of hotels or cafes or food as they were literally breathing down my neck at the same time.”
Moments of levity may help Grozev cope with the ongoing threat to his life. “It does get normalized after time,” he says. “So, you no longer are shocked, you’re no longer stressed. You can sleep normally.”
After Austrian authorities told Grozev they couldn’t protect him, he took up residence in New York. That was fine while Biden was president. But with Trump back in office his safety in the U.S. can no longer be taken for granted.
“The new shock comes, which is, well, suddenly the country that gave you asylum and a safe space is now aligning itself with the enemy and is it safe anymore? And what is the next destination?” Of Antidote, he says, “It’s kind of like a fugitive film in a way but involving a journalist.”
Journalist Christo Grozev (center) participates in a panel discussion at CPH:DOX with moderator Sameer Padania (left) and SVT’s Axel Arnö
Matthew Carey
Grozev now serves as head of investigations for The Insider. At a Q&A following the world premiere of Antidote in Copenhagen, he said he would keep pursuing his investigative work so long as he continued to enjoy the support of his wife and two children. They have backed his journalistic mission despite the grave risk it presents to his wellbeing.
At CPH:DOX, the location of the world premiere of Antidote was not disclosed until just before the event. A security measure.
“It is just weird how relative safety is because six months ago I had doubts whether I should be in Copenhagen,” Grozev tells Deadline. “But now there’s no question the U.S. is not safe anymore. Everything, all assessment of risk, is relative.”
