A few months before the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in late October 2021, around 100 independent Russian journalists gathered in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo.
Most of us were already in exile; the rest were preparing to leave — part of what would become the largest exodus of anti-Kremlin journalists and activists from Russia in the 21st century. Any hopes for independent journalism were falling as Putin’s increasingly authoritarian regime raised repression on independent media and non-governmental organizations. Only later would we realize this was all part of a broader Kremlin strategy to prepare the ground at home for the invasion of Ukraine.
We met in a grand Austro-Hungarian hotel in the center of Sarajevo, a stone’s throw from the spot where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in 1914, to discuss problems linked to relocating editorial offices from Russia to Europe, to address legal issues, and find new ways of reporting on Russia from abroad.
Among us were journalists from Belarus, who had fled their country a year earlier after the protests against Lukashenka failed. They were invited to share what we might expect next from the Kremlin. One of them said matter-of-factly: “Guys, the next thing you should expect is penetration by your security services — and it will haunt you for years to come.” It was a fair warning.
In the three and a half years since 2022, Russian political emigration has become a sorry story of scandal and mutual accusation. The two biggest forces in exile — Alexei Navalny’s organization and the political and media network of former oligarch–turned–political prisoner Mikhail Khodorkovsky — have become bitterly locked in a series of very public feuds, including accusations of involvement in physical attacks and contacts with the FSB. Meanwhile, a journalism school run by the daughter of Boris Nemtsov, a towering figure in the Russian opposition who was murdered in 2015, came under attack after it was revealed that it had hosted the GRU agent Pablo González as a lecturer.
These scandals have unfolded against the grim backdrop of mysterious poisoning attempts — including one targeting the head of the Free Russia Foundation, Natalia Arno — which came close to causing fatal consequences.
And then came the story of the Rogovs. The couple is a husband-and-wife team arrested in Poland last year on espionage charges. The husband, Igor, a political activist and former member of Navalny’s organization in Saransk, later served as a coordinator for Open Russia (funded by Khodorkovsky) in Mordovia. The couple fled Russia for Poland soon after the start of the full-scale invasion, where Igor was granted political asylum and subsequently studied at the University of Katowice.
Rogov has now admitted that he had worked for the FSB — and that he had been recruited in Russia, before emigrating to Poland, according to reports. The newspaper Wirtualna Polska quoted him as saying: “I was supposed to do what I enjoyed — join the ranks of the Russian opposition, meet new people, and ultimately report everything to the FSB. I felt like I was doing more good than harm.”
At the same time, he insisted that he had acted under pressure and that it threatened that failure to cooperate would result in his father’s forcible conscription and dispatch to the front line.
This was apparently enough to persuade Rogov not just to gather information, but also to engage in activities linked to sabotage. Polish authorities linked him to an attempt to transport a parcel containing bomb components in 2024, and also found photos of a gas pipeline in Sosnowiec stored in his phone’s memory.
Rogov’s story is a vivid illustration of what has become a serious security problem for Europe — and a profound challenge for the Russian community in exile.
Rogov was always a low-level activist, yet he apparently managed to penetrate two of the most prominent anti-Kremlin organizations in exile. And while he may be relatively insignificant, he was clearly useful to the FSB’s aggressive combination of intelligence gathering and sabotage in Poland.
The significance of people like Rogov is something the Russian opposition still struggles to grasp. The exile community no longer simply suffers FSB harassment; it is now targeted by the agency as a conduit for operations, including agent infiltration and Russian intelligence operations across the continent.
Rogov — as low-profile as he was — collected information on Russian activists but also on the staff of the Polish foreign ministry and local NGOs, potentially making them targets as well.
Russia wins both ways. If its agents are able to operate, it reaps the rewards from intelligence material and from work to destroy European targets. On the other hand, if its agents are caught, the exile community and some Western European politicians begin to view the presence of Russian exiles in their countries as a potential threat. Western security services have increasingly started to view Russian political emigration in precisely this light.
Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan are Non-resident Senior Fellows with the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). They are Russian investigative journalists and co-founders of Agentura.ru, a watchdog of Russian secret service activities. Their book ’Our Dear Friends in Moscow, The Inside Story of a Broken Generation’ was published in June.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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