How a Journalist Ended Up on the Kremlin’s Wanted List
On the day after Christmas in 2022, news broke that would reshape investigative journalist Christo Grozev’s life.
The Bulgarian journalist’s reporting with the open-source investigative outlet Bellingcat had previously exposed many Kremlin assassins and spies — including those involved in high-profile cases like the 2018 poisoning of ex-double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the U.K. with the nerve agent Novichok, and the poisoning of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny with the same nerve agent two years later.
Now, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government had placed Grozev on a “wanted” list, in what proved to be one in a series of escalating dangers for Grozev and his family as he continued his reporting.
In the above video drawn from the new documentary Antidote, Grozev reacts to the news of the Kremlin’s designation.
“Well, apparently I’m wanted by Russia,” Grozev tells director James Jones as he processes the news. “I’m on a federal search warrant list with no explanation what for — what the charges are.”
What Grozev goes through in the months and years that follow unspools in Antidote, an award-winning feature documentary about the cost of opposing Putin that will have its U.S. premiere on FRONTLINE Tuesday, May 6. The documentary tells the stories of two people putting their lives on the line to stand up to the Kremlin: Grozev, through his investigative journalism, and Vladimir Kara-Murza, a prominent political activist who had been poisoned twice and was sentenced to 25 years in a Russian prison.
As the above video shows, Grozev’s life changed dramatically once he learned he was wanted by Russia. When he returned to his home in Vienna, Austria, he says local police told him that they needed to ratchet up his security “immediately,” but it still might not be enough to keep him safe.
“‘Life is not going to be like it was before,’” Grozev recalls being told. “I may have to change the place of life for my family, because local police is telling me, ‘Vienna is not an easy place for you to be protected. There are way too many Russians, way too many potential spies here that we are not aware of.’ Ironically, thanks to my work I understand better than anyone what this means.”
“So how many Russian agents have you uncovered?” Jones asks Grozev.
“In terms of people of relevance who I’ve focused on individually, we’re about 300,” Grozev responds. “In terms of names that I know are spies, we’re talking about 5,000. It’s one big puzzle. It was only when we cracked open the network that we understood the true scale of this secret killing machine.”
Antidote goes on to trace how Grozev would end up on the radar of that “secret killing machine” himself, and how the journalist would one day end up investigating his own targeting by a hit team linked to the Kremlin.
“Clearly, this is from the realm of a really, really crazy novel,” Grozev says in the film. “It doesn’t happen, really. Until it does.”
Antidote will be available to watch in full at pbs.org/frontline and in the PBS App starting May 6, 2025, at 7/6c. It will premiere on PBS stations (check local listings) and on FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel that night at 10/9c and will also be available on the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel. Antidote is a Passion Pictures and Bellingcat Production for FRONTLINE in association with Impact Partners, Channel 4 and M4 Studio. The director and producer is James Jones. The production executive is Tom Cross. The co-producer is Vivien Jones. The senior producer is Dan Edge. The co-executive producers are Lauren Haber and Kelsey Koenig. The executive producers are Jim & Susan Swartz; Nina & David Fialkow; Maiken Baird; Jens Von Bahr; John Driscoll; Molly & Kevin Efrusy; Jenny Raskin; Geralyn White Dreyfous; Joanna Potts; Nevine Mabro; Louisa Compton; Hamish Fergusson; Andrew Ruhemann; Fiona Stourton; and David Moulton. The editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE is Raney Aronson-Rath.
