A Russian diplomat recalled from Brussels amid a spy purge by Belgian authorities has been nominated to head the Belgrade mission of Europe's largest security body, a joint investigation by RFE/RL and several European media outlets has found.
Moscow has nominated Dmitry Iordanidi, a former deputy head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) mission to Bosnia-Herzegovina with deep experience in the Balkans, to lead the organization’s mission to Serbia, internal OSCE records obtained by RFE/RL show.
His candidacy comes amid mounting accusations from the United States and European governments in recent years of “malign” Russian activities across the region covered by the 57-nation regional security body based in Vienna.
Iordanidi, 55, is one of 20 Russian diplomats who quietly left Brussels in 2023 due to allegations by the Belgian State Security Service (VSSE) that they were spies working under cover, according to a list compiled by Belgian intelligence and authenticated independently by three Western intelligence sources, the joint investigation by RFE/RL, the Brussels-based news site EUobserver, the Belgian daily De Morgen, the Belgian weekly Humo, and the French daily Le Monde found.
One intelligence source called the spy purge an “occasion to empty our drawer” in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
While the Belgian government does not publish lists of accredited diplomats in the country, and Russia's diplomatic mission in Brussels does not publish the names of its personnel, RFE/RL independently verified the presence of several of the expelled Russian diplomats in Belgium in 2023.
The Russian diplomats, who have not been publicly identified until now, were alleged in the list to be affiliated with Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) or its military intelligence directorate, known as the GRU.
Iordanidi, whom the Belgian intelligence list identifies as affiliated with the SVR, is the only diplomat among the 20 who was not declared persona non grata, according to one intelligence source. The source said Russia recalled Iordanidi after Belgium communicated that Iordanidi would be declared persona non grata if Moscow did not recall him.
Now, Moscow is trying to place Iordanidi back with the OSCE, the Vienna-based multilateral organization that, until Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, had played a central role in monitoring Russian aggression in Ukraine and attempting to mediate between Moscow and Kyiv.
Iordanidi was listed as one of eight nominees for OSCE mission head in Serbia following the December 1, 2024, deadline for candidate submissions, according to the document obtained by RFE/RL.
Russia also nominated him to head an OSCE program office in Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Bishkek, and for the same position in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana.
The OSCE said in an e-mailed statement that the recruitment for all three of these positions is still ongoing and that it could not comment on the matter, citing confidentiality.
The positions are appointed by the OSCE chairperson-in-office -- currently Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen -- in consultation with senior current and former OSCE officials and the host countries of the respective missions, OSCE spokesperson Alexandra Taylor said.
"We follow a rigorous recruitment process for all of our positions at the OSCE,” Taylor said.
Western officials and governments have accused Moscow of acting as a saboteur of the OSCE and abusing the organization's consensual politics, including in connection with Russia’s war on Ukraine – now the largest and bloodiest in Europe since World War II.
Russia has criticized the OSCE as “being reformatted to become an appendage of NATO and the EU.”
Following RFE/RL investigations into suspected Russian intelligence influence on the OSCE, the organization’s parliamentary assembly, which facilitates dialogue among member states, called on OSCE leadership “to initiate relevant discussions and security checks to rid the organization of the Russian destructive influence.”
Russia has previously sent its diplomats expelled by EU states for alleged espionage to its embassy in Serbia, where President Aleksandar Vucic has sought to maintain Belgrade's traditionally strong ties with Russia, a March 2023 investigation by RFE/RL revealed.
Neither Iordanidi nor the Russian Embassy in Brussels responded to requests for comment. The VSSE also did not respond to a request for comment.
Balkan Journeys
Following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, hundreds of Russian diplomats were expelled by the United States and EU governments, including those posted at Russia’s diplomatic mission to Belgium and to the EU in Brussels.
Among those was Aleksandr Studenikin, who was expelled by the EU for "illegal and disruptive actions" but resurfaced as an OSCE election observer for December 2023 parliamentary and local elections in Serbia, an RFE/RL investigation found.
Iordanidi’s public footprint in the Belgian capital was negligible, though he appears to have arrived at some point in 2023 in a geographic break from a diplomatic career rooted largely in the Balkans.
Publicly available records show that, as of 2009, he was serving as the first political secretary at the Russian Embassy in Sarajevo and, several years later, as head of the OSCE field office in Banja Luka, the administrative center of Bosnia's Serb entity, Republika Srpska.
In May 2013, Iordanidi sat between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during their meeting with then-Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic at the Russian president’s summer residence in the southern resort town of Sochi. Vucic, at the time Serbia’s defense minister and first deputy prime minister, was present as well.
Iordanidi later became deputy head of the OSCE Mission to Bosnia-Herzegovina in Sarajevo and appears to have left that post at some point toward the latter half of 2022 or early 2023.
An OSCE source who spoke on condition of anonymity recalled Iordanidi leaving Sarajevo for Belgium, and one of the intelligence sources contacted for this report said he arrived in 2023 and left under pressure the same year.
Reporters could find no open-source evidence of Iordanidi’s posting with the Russian Embassy in Brussels during his brief sojourn there, a stark contrast from his time with the OSCE in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where he gave frequent interviews and made public appearances.
Much of his earlier public work with the OSCE in the Balkans was related to environmental issues and the promotion of civil liberties.
Leaked Russian government databases -- such as residential, vehicle, and tax records -- reviewed by RFE/RL do not reflect any clear connection on paper between Iordanidi and Russian intelligence. They do, however, for other Russians blacklisted in the Belgian spy purge that Iordanidi was swept up in.
GRU Men In Brussels
Among the 19 other Russian diplomats on the Belgian intelligence list of alleged spies along with Iordanidi was Aleksandr Kovalchuk, who formally served as a counsellor with the Russian Embassy in Brussels.
Leaked residential records list Kovalchuk’s registered home address as Ulitsa Narodnogo Opolcheniya 50 in Moscow, the same address as the Russian Defense Ministry’s Military Academy. The academy is widely known as the “GRU Conservatory” -- an acronym referring to Russia’s military-intelligence directorate.
Also on the list of alleged spy diplomats is Sergei Cherepanov, who served as second secretary at the Russian Embassy in Brussels. Leaked Russian government records show he previously worked at the Strategic Missile Forces Academy in Moscow and was registered at an address tied to Military Unit 46179, which specializes in seismic and infrasound surveillance via satellites under the 12th Main Directorate, responsible for nuclear security.
The listed residential address of another expelled Russian diplomat, Dmitry Zamogilnykh, who worked as part of the embassy’s technical staff, is linked to Military Unit 92154, a GRU special forces division.
Meanwhile, one of the expelled diplomats, Sergei Gudilin, photographed a military-related facility near the Belgian capital, according to publicly available data on his account with the fitness app Strava.
In July 2021, he posted a photograph on his Strava account of the Bertem radar station, part of Belgium’s air-traffic control network that provides radar data to the Belgian military.
Inquiries sent to listed e-mail addresses for Kovalchuk, Cherepanov, Zamogilnykh, and Gudilin went unanswered.
Belgium’s crackdown resulted altogether in the expulsion of 20 alleged Russian spies, according to the list, adding to 48 prior expulsions of members of Russian delegations to the EU and NATO.
“Belgium wishes to maintain normal diplomatic relations with Russia but cannot allow these relations to be abused for espionage purposes,” Belgian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Pierre Steverlynck said.
Evolving Threats
While European countries have collectively expelled more than 700 Russian diplomats -- including alleged spies -- since Russia launched its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Western experts warn the threat from Moscow is evolving.
"We saw…a diminishment for a little while in [Russian intelligence services’] ability to conduct malign intelligence operations in our countries, but it has been reconstituted," James Appathurai, a senior NATO official specializing in hybrid warfare, said in an interview with EUobserver.
Appathurai said Russia has shifted its focus to online recruitment, increasingly enlisting criminal gangs and unwitting individuals for sabotage.
"These recruits often don’t even realize who they are working for," Appathurai said. "They carry out acts of arson, train derailments, even attacks on politicians' properties -- all with Russian intelligence pulling the strings from the shadows."
The German magazine Der Spiegel reported last month that German investigators suspect a spate of car-vandalism incidents in the country were bankrolled by a Russian client and carried out by low-level accomplices under the guise of climate activism.
Prosecutors in the southern German city of Ulm said four suspects had been detained in connection with more than 100 vandalism incidents in which hardening foam was used to block exhaust car pipes. The suspects included natives of Romania, Serbia, and Bosnia.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in January accused Russia of plotting terror attacks against unspecified targets utilizing aircraft after two separate incidents in which DHL cargo ignited in Lithuania and Britain, respectively.
"I will not go into details, I can only confirm the validity of fears that Russia was planning acts of air terror, not only against Poland but against airlines around the world," Tusk told a news conference.
Moscow has repeatedly denied accusations by Western governments of its involvement in terror attacks, including arson, poisoning, and attacks on individuals in the West.
