investigator and the cause of serial embarrassment to the kremlin with his revelations about the poisoning of alexei navalny and other russian military and intelligence operations. he says he follows the facts wherever they lead but what s his motivation? christo grozev, in washington, dc, welcome to hardtalk. thank you for having me on hardtalk. it s a pleasure. alexei navalny famously described you once as just a bulgarian nerd with a laptop. since he said that, you have become thejoint winner of an oscar, you are in the international limelight as an investigative journalist. does all of this attention make yourjob harder? not necessarily. i was oblivious of any attention before all of these awards and i m oblivious of it now. i like to work from cafes so i get a lot more people approaching me and asking for a selfie but that is about the only disruption. you, until very recently, were based in vienna but you re talking to me from the united states. did you move away from v
why my guest today, christo grozev, bases his investigative journalism in digital detective work. he is the lead russian investigator for bellingcat and the cause of cereal embarrassment to the kremlin with his revelations about the poisoning of alexei navalny and other russian military and intelligence operations. he says he follows the facts wherever they lead but what is his motivation? christo grozev, in washington, dc, welcome to hardtalk. thank ou for dc, welcome to hardtalk. thank you for having dc, welcome to hardtalk. thank you for having me dc, welcome to hardtalk. thank you for having me on dc, welcome to hardtalk. thank you for having me on hardtalk. l you for having me on hardtalk. it is a pleasure. alexei navalny is famously described you once as just a bulgarian nerd with a laptop. since he said that, you become thejoint winner of an off guard, you are in the international limelight as an investigative journalist academy award. does this all make yourj
in digital detective work. he is bellingcat s lead russia investigator and the cause of serial embarrassment to the kremlin with his revelations about the poisoning of alexei navalny and other russian military and intelligence operations. he says he follows the facts wherever they lead but what s his motivation? christo grozev, in washington, dc, welcome to hardtalk. thank you for having me on hardtalk. it s a pleasure. alexei navalny famously described you once as just a bulgarian nerd with a laptop. since he said that, you have become the joint winner of an oscar, you are in the international limelight as an investigative journalist. does all of this attention make yourjob harder? not necessarily. i was oblivious of any attention before all of these awards and i m oblivious of it now. i like to work from cafes so i get a lot more people approaching me and asking for a selfie but that is about the only disruption. you, until very recently, were based in vienna but you re tal
of january because of serious and imminent concerns about my safety so fortunately i am stuck in the united states. when you say stuck in the united states people be interested to know, because you are a figure who spends a lot of time particularly focused on what russia is up to and it obviously is interesting to people where you are based. are you now officially based in the united states? well, i don t know whether it s official or unofficial but i am spending 100% of my time in the united states. and that s sad because it is away from family and home but it doesn t matter where i work from, as i said, i work from cafes and hotel lobbies so i can continue working from here, regardless of where officially i am based. before we get into the detail of all the different investigations and the work you have done looking at russia and some of its covert operations and some of its military operations, if we can, let s get to the origin story
at russia and some of its covid operations and military operations, if we can let s get to the origin story of bellingcat. you with bellingcat. you with bellingcat. bellingcat really first emerged as an investigative force, looking at what was happening in the conflict in syria in the period around 2013 2014. you focus your attention on russia. why are you with bellingcat and has bellingcat fundamentally shifted its main focus of attention? shifted its main focus of attention? ~ , ., ., attention? well, you are right. the founder attention? well, you are right. the founder of attention? well, you are right. the founder of bellingcat - attention? well, you are right. the founder of bellingcat eliot | the founder of bellingcat eliot higgins, he did start his blogging platform initially because of his acute interest in the details of open source investigations of the war in yemen and syria by 2014 when he formalised bellingcat as the bellingcat platform with this