Russian spies are still active in the EU capital and have “a higher risk appetite” than before the Ukraine war — despite Belgium’s efforts to push back against their conspiracies.
Meet Dmitry Iordanidi: elite diplomat, École Nationale d’Administration (ENA) alumnus, and (alleged) Russian spy.
The brown-eyed 55-year-old, whose name is of Pontic Greek origin, was briefly a “counsellor” in Russia’s bilateral embassy to Belgium in 2023.
He had previously served as deputy-head of mission in Bosnia for the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE), a peace-building institute based in Vienna.
He’d also been photographed with Russian president Vladimir Putin, (late) Serbian president Tomislav Nikolić, and (now) president Aleksandar Vučić in Putin’s summer residence in Sochi, on Russia’s Black Sea coast, in 2013, in a sign of his high status.
Some of Iordanidi’s OSCE speeches voiced leftwing ecological values, amid German intelligence warnings of Russian ties with radical eco-activists in Europe.
But there was no red-flag anti-Western content in his public views.
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