The alleged Russian spy facing 30 years in prison for threatening to bring chaos to the Paris Olympics opening ceremony was today named as former reality TV star Kirill Gryaznov.
The 40-year-old was on Wednesday in a high-security prison charged with working ‘with a foreign power to try and incite hostilities in France.’
A picture he put on his Instagram account, which is followed by some 10,000 people, show him posing with weapons.
Gryaznov – who denies any wrongdoing – has been identified as working for the FSB, Russia’s Federal Security Service domestic intelligence agency.
He is said to have boasted about turning the start of the Paris Olympics into ‘an opening ceremony like no other’.
It is due to begin on Friday night, with 80 barges full of athletes and other competitors sailing down the River Seine infront of thousands of guests including VIPs.
The alleged Russian spy facing 30 years in prison for threatening to bring chaos to the Paris Olympics opening ceremony was today named as former reality TV star Kirill Gryaznov (pictured)
According to Le Monde, Griaznov has been living in France for 14 years, and was first exposed when he got drunk and was kicked off a plane
Gryaznov – who denies any wrongdoing – has been identified as working for the FSB
Gryaznov, who has 10,000 Instagram followers, starred in a Russian Bachelor-style show, in which six women tried to seduce him.
According to Le Monde, Griaznov has been living in France for 14 years, and was first exposed when he got drunk and was kicked off a plane that was due to take him from Istanbul to Paris in May.
He switched to a flight from Bulgaria, and stopped off en route at a restaurant from where he rang his intelligence handlers in Moscow.
Griaznov then boasted that he was going to give Paris an ‘opening ceremony like no other’, according to phone intercepts.
It was on July 21 that Gryaznov was arrested in his flat on Rue Saint-Denis, close to Notre Dame Cathedral and the Louvre museum.
Prosecutors in Paris said the search of the Russian national’s apartment had been carried out at the request of the Interior Ministry.
Agents found evidence of a ‘large-scale project’ that could have had ‘serious’ consequences during the three weeks of the Games.
Armed guards have been spotted patrolling metal barricades erected near the River Seine in Paris ahead of the start of the Olympics
Police officers take security measures as preparations continue before the opening of Paris 2024 Olympics on July 22, 2024 in Paris
According to prosecutors, investigators also found ‘diplomatic material,’ relating to President Vladimir Putin’s regime.
Two days later, Gryaznov was placed in detention and charged with the offence that comes with a maximum 30 year sentence, before being held on remand before trial.
Gryaznov first arrived in France in 2010 and the following year joined a restaurant linked to a Michelin-starred luxury hotel in Courchevel, the Alpine ski resort favoured by Russian oligarchs.
The suspect left for Paris in 2012, where, according to emails dating from September that year, told his landlady, named by Le Monde only as Viviane, that he was returning to Moscow to work as an official in the Russian government.
But he took part in a civic training day, a mandatory integration step for those who want to become French nationals, in April 2013.
He described himself on his CV as a ‘private chef’ but made no mention of any Russian government links.
His arrest came after police officers from the elite research and intervention brigade, called in by the DGSI, the French MI5, conducted a dawn raid on his home.
Police officers take security measures as preparations continue before the opening of Paris 2024 Olympics on July 22, 2024 in Paris
Armed guards near the Plaza de la Bastilla, Paris. The Opening Ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games takes place on Friday July 26, along the River Seine
Locals were seen eating at a restaurant behind perimeter fencing in Paris which is being used as the first line of defence
Police officers control access to roads near the Seine river, ahead of the 2024 Summer Olympics
In June, Microsoft said Russia was seeking to undermine the Olympics with the creation of fake websites replicating authentic French media outlets stirring up claims about terrorism.
Gérald Darmanin, the French Interior Minister, said this week that authorities had screened over one million people ahead of the Games.
‘We are here to ensure that sport is not used for espionage, cyber attacks or to criticise and sometimes even lie about France and the French,’ he said.
In June, a 26-year-old Russian former soldier was arrested after accidentally triggering explosives in a hotel room at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport.
He was said to be targetting a hardware store north of Paris, as part of a ‘vast sabotage campaign orchestrated in Moscow,’ said an intelligence source.
High-profile stunts have also raised suspicion that foreign actors are trying to influence French public opinion or stoke divisions, notably about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or the killing of thousands of civilians by Israel in Gaza.
Stunts include dummy coffins labelled ‘French soldiers in Ukraine’ left by the Eiffel Tower in June, and red hands tagged on Paris’s main Holocaust memorial in May.
In October, soon after Hamas’s attack, stars of David were tagged on buildings in the Paris region, with two Moldovans suspected to be working for the FSB later arrested.
