INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
He had been sent to Tbilisi to monitor the many Russian dissidents who have flooded the Georgian capital recently.But he says his new
In it, the 20-year-old Muscovite admitted to working for the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB): first in Moscow to report on the
media, would seem to be big news in Georgia, where concern about the large influx of Russians is keen
professionals whose livelihoods were threatened by international sanctions against Russia.Even as they flock to Georgia, many Russian
dissidents do not feel entirely safe here
In apparent fear of angering the Kremlin, the Georgian government has blocked the entrance of several well-known opposition personalities
Some worry that the Georgian government may be coordinating with Moscow
Lots of Georgians oppose the flow of Russian migrants, believing that among the flood of digital nomads, journalists and dissidents,
individuals who came clean via social media about traveling to Georgia to spy, and thinks he has spotted a few others
Then, once a week, I was supposed to report to my coordinator what the general scene was like and if I had picked up on anything
Some would get really drunk and blow their cover, or at least I could see it
identifiable to a keen eye
Well before he went public, one heavily inebriated young Russian came up to him in a bar and said in a drunken slur that he knows who he
participating in a demonstration in Moscow in support of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny
Threatened with imprisonment, he was intimidated into serving as a mole in the LPR and another opposition group, he says, adding that that
awarded with a bigger assignment: go to Georgia
particular: self-exiled chairman of the LPR, Yaroslav Konvey, and Anton Mikhalchuk, a manager with the opposition group Free Russia
Upon his arrival, Osipov says he went directly to the two and told them outright that he was recruited by the FSB
offered to send false info back to his superiors and throw them off the track, but they appeared to be mistrustful and spread the word among
their colleagues about an informant in their midst, Osipov said
She asked him directly if he was working for the FSB
Moscow and convinced his handlers to extend his stay in Georgia
Even his handlers appeared curious about vacation options in Georgia: on top of his main job, he says, they asked him to collect intel on
responding to his handlers in March, Osipov says
In June, he spoke to Meduza, which fact-checked his claims, found his handlers and published their identities, and also spoke to the
activists that Osipov was supposed to follow
