Russia secret service recruiting at Serbia universities for sabotage missions, according to Bulgarian investigative journalist

Podgorica, 29 January 2026, dtt-net.com – A Bulgarian investigative journalist told Montenegrin media today that Russian secret service members sentenced in absentia in 2019 of involvement in coup attempt in Montenegro in 2016 and later acquitted after government change in Montenegro in 2020, are now recruiting abroad, including youth from universities in Serbia to train them for sabotage missions. Christo Grozev, a former journalist of Bellingcat and currently working for Spiegel and The Insider, told ETV in an interview today that one of the two Russian military spies who according to Montenegro prosecution was directly involved in organizing the failed coup in late 2016 in Montenegro, Eduard Shishmakov, now is bringing students from Serbia universities to Russia, while his colleagues do the same in other countries, like in Uzbekistan, Kyrgystan, or Belarus.