Russian man detained in France hosted cooking show and appeared on ‘The Bachelor’ in Russia, has FSB ties - investigation

A 40-year-old Russian man arrested in Paris on suspicion of preparing provocations at the Olympic Games is a chef named Kirill Gryaznov, according to a joint investigation by The Insider, Der Spiegel and Le Monde.

The journalists found out that Gryaznov, who had previously appeared on Russian TV shows, is linked to FSB and GRU officers.

He revealed the purpose of his trip to Paris in a drunken conversation. Now, on charges of espionage, he faces up to 30 years in prison, Medusa reports.

Gryaznov attracted the attention of the special services in May 2024 – he was ‘let down by alcohol,’ the investigation says. On 7 May, he was going to fly from Moscow to Paris with a stopover in Istanbul. However, in Turkey, the Russian got so drunk that he was not allowed on the plane and was blacklisted. He travelled by car to Bulgaria, where he drank again in a restaurant and began telling random people that he was travelling to Paris on a secret mission for the Russian secret services.

According to witnesses, Gryaznov threatened that France would ‘remember this Olympics for a long time’, without specifying what he meant.

Allegedly, he showed his interlocutors a certain identity card to prove that he was working for the special services, and also called someone and reported that he had hired a person from Chisinau for the task.

French law enforcement officials arrested Gryaznov on 21 July in his apartment on Rue Saint-Denis in the centre of Paris. He was accused of ‘intelligence activities’ in favour of a foreign state with the aim of ‘inciting hostilities in France’. Gryaznov faces up to 30 years in prison. He is currently in a pre-trial detention centre.

It has not been publicly reported what kind of provocations Gryaznov was planning to organise during the Paris Olympics.

Le Parisien's sources claim that it was a ‘large-scale project’ whose consequences could have been ‘serious’.

According to the Paris prosecutor's office, during the arrest, the Russian was found in possession of some ‘diplomatic materials’ and a certificate indicating that he belonged to ‘Unit V’ of the Russian special services.

Gryaznov was born in 1984 in Perm to a doctor, studied to become a lawyer, and then moved to Moscow. According to Le Monde, Gryaznov worked in financial companies and in 2010 moved to France, suddenly deciding to change his profession and become a chef.

He took culinary courses at Le Cordon Bleu Paris and worked at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Courchevel from November 2011 to March 2012.

However, already in September 2012, Gryaznov told the owner of the apartment in Paris that he was renting that he had returned to Moscow: he was ‘working for the state’ and promised to come to France if possible and return to her ‘what he owed’.

At the same time, the authors of the investigation were unable to find any evidence that Gryaznov worked for state-owned companies or organisations, The Insider notes.

In Russia, Gryaznov continued to work as a chef. He periodically appears in various shows on Russian TV channels in culinary sections.

In 2015, Gryaznov starred in the first season of the show Choose Me (similar to The Bachelor), where single men choose a bride among six girls every week. ‘Meet this week's grand prize: Kirill Gryaznov, a successful businessman and restaurateur. He has everything but the woman he loves,’ was how he was introduced in the first episode of the programme, stating that Gryaznov intends to open “at least” three restaurants, including in Moscow.

‘The real picture of his personal life remains behind the scenes: a series of scandals, suspicions, hidden camera recordings and ugly divorces accompanied by humiliating insults. However, he is neither a ‘restaurateur’ nor a ‘successful businessman’ – overdue debts and alcohol problems have hampered his career as a chef. At one such moment in 2013, one of the girls who had dumped him even offered Gryaznov, who was stranded, to throw money on his phone out of pity,’ says The Insider, who has access to the chef's correspondence.

The journalists also drew the conclusion that Gryaznov might be connected to Russian special services from his correspondence with his friends.

For example, in 2009, Yulia Pastukhova, secretary to the director of Ken-Group, sent Gryaznov the registration card of the director's son, Major Andrei Belyashov, a senior officer in the Main Personnel Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Defence.

In 2010, Perm businessman Anton Mikhailov asked Gryaznov to ‘break’ FSB officer Eduard Kolivanov and sent him his details.

‘You will be able to find out carefully what kind of person he is and whether he can be trusted,’ the businessman explains his request.

Gryaznov may owe his connections to his brother Dmitry, who is the head of the Main Department for Legal Support of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union State of Russia and Belarus. ‘Few people understand what this strange integration association does, but there are many intelligence officers among its functionaries,’ The Insider claims.

Dmitry Gryaznov often flies together with his colleague Andrei Chekanov, who heads the staff of the leadership of the Union State's parliamentary assembly. They also share a driver. Chekanov, in turn, is registered at 36 Sorge Street in Moscow. One of the suspects in the attempted murder of the Skripals, GRU officer Sergei Fedotov (aka Denis Sergeev) and the couple Sergei Skvortsov and Yelena Kulkova, who were detained in Sweden on suspicion of spying for Russian special services, also received an apartment there.

In addition, Kirill Gryaznov's connection with Russian special services is evidenced by the fact that in 2019 he flew from Perm to Moscow on a ticket bought by Vladimir Bondarchuk, the former chief inspector of the FSB Control Service.

Background. As reported, French police detained a Russian on suspicion of attempting to ‘destabilise the situation’ at the Olympics. An investigation has been launched into the transfer of intelligence information to a foreign state ‘with the aim of inciting hostile acts in France’, and the Russian faces up to 30 years in prison.