The war in Ukraine is forcing Western partners to carefully examine the extent to which their intelligence services have been infiltrated by Russian agents since the end of World War II. A helpful document, in particular, was the archive of the defector, the former head of the KGB archives, Vasily Mitrokhin, which was handed over to the British.
Recently, Le Monde has published an investigation into the activities of just one of the recruited Russian agents, Pierre Chaillot. According to the article’s conclusions, during the 1950s he handed over to Moscow 15 French spies, as well as, with high probability, 11 Americans, 3 British, one Swede, and another 76 French agents who were collecting information about the USSR.
Le Monde reports that a woman seduced Pierre Chaillot into betraying French interests. Her real name is probably Valentina Yukum, but in Soviet archives she is listed as Yadviga Vilgemovna Tous, “a KGB agent of Estonian origin, translator for the Soviet military administration.” They met in destroyed Berlin in 1945 and remained together until death did them part. “Lydia Tous, whose real name was Valentina Yukum, died on October 7, 1999, in Paris, and Pierre Chaillot on April 13, 2007, in Tois, De Sèvres,” Le Monde reports.
The amount of information that this pair of enamored agents passed on to Moscow is staggering. “Three years after he agreed to work for Moscow, Pierre Chaillot handed over ‘a large number of valuable documents.’ His testimony led to the arrest and execution of French spies, according to the media outlet.
How did it happen that in the high offices of Paris, where they were so proud of the impenetrability of their intelligence structures, a sweet couple worked to their full potential? The investigation notes that the archives of the French Berlin mission of the West Berlin Territorial Surveillance Brigade burned down, and according to colleagues, Pierre Chaillot gave the impression of an ideal agent. On the other hand, the British received an intriguing comment from the Mitrokhin archive in 1992. The Le Monde document quotes, “The Allied services maintain a distance from the French mission.” “It had a reputation for being leaky because it was more interested in cleaning up collaborators with the Germans than in tracking down Soviet agents.”
Due to various circumstances, France has long been reluctant to deal closely with Russian influences. Now is the time to grow up. The arrest of chef-agent Kirill Gryaznov, who orchestrated a series of provocations during the recent Olympic Games in Paris, has shattered the illusions of “good Russians and bad Putin” in the minds of many naive souls. French special services detained Gryaznov in July 2024.
Investigators found evidence on him that supported the espionage charge. As The Insider notes, Kirill Gryaznov did not particularly hide the fact that he was not just a cook. “For example, in 2012, he wrote to the landlady of his apartment in France: ‘I am fine; I am in Moscow; I work for the state!’—although there is no evidence that he worked in any state companies or organizations,” the mass media reports. Back then, in the peaceful year of 2012, ordinary French people did not harbor any distrust of Russians working for the Kremlin. Ten years later, that trust has turned into a complete unwillingness to acknowledge the tragic realities: namely, the fact that Putin and the vast majority of Russians are in tune with each other in aggression and savagery.
Have the French become wiser after three years of full-scale war? We would like to believe it, but reality does not always give grounds for optimism. Here is at least one fact: recently, the large French weekly Marianne appointed Frederic Thaddeus, a former employee of the propaganda channel Russia Today (RT), as editor-in-chief. The magazine is owned by the Czech concern Czech Media Invest (CMI), which belongs to Czech businessman Daniel Kretinsky. He also owns the publications Elle, Télé 7 Jours, and Franc-Tireur. Thaddeus worked at Russia Today (RT) from 2018 to 2022. Daniel Kretinsky, as previously reported, is a partner of the Russian Gazprom.
The current war is being waged simultaneously in several dimensions. In the information space, Moscow is attacking Western partners with money and technology at full speed. Not everyone can and does not want to resist the temptation; not everyone is ready to realize the deadly danger that the Kremlin poses to the free world.
