He lived with his sick mother and never had a regular job. He didn’t have a defined source of income and, according to his uncle, he even signed up for social benefits as a caregiver, to receive help from the state.
But Bohus Garbar, with little luck and just over 50 years old, still managed to donate thousands of euros to far-right political parties in Slovakia, friends of the Kremlin. He also worked for free as a contributor to an anti-establishment website known for recycling Russian propaganda.
Family and friends are confused.
“He was definitely not in a situation where he could support any party,” says his uncle, Bohuslav Garbar, a retired computer programmer in Kosice, 80 kilometers from Slovakia’s border with Ukraine.
A surveillance video from the Slovak security service, released in early March, provides at least the beginning of an explanation: it shows the nephew receiving instructions and two 500-euro bills (about R$2,500), a small part of what the officials say there were tens of thousands in payments, from a Russian military intelligence officer disguised as a diplomat, at the Moscow embassy in Bratislava.
“I told Moscow you are a very good boy,” Russian spy Sergei Solomasov can be heard saying to his Slovak recruit before explaining that Russia would like Bohus Garbar to act as a “hunter” of influential people willing to cooperate.
For years, European intelligence agencies have raised the alarm about the clandestine activities of Russian spies, while eyeing those who support the country and its president, Vladimir Putin, with suspicion. Moscow habitually dismissed this as paranoid “Russophobia”, its general response to almost all foreign criticism.
The invasion of Ukraine, accompanied by a barrage of transparent lies, however, vindicated the darkest Western suspicions and accelerated efforts to root out hidden networks of spies and their recruits.
Slovakia, a small Slavic nation with a strongly pro-Western government but also great reserves of genuine sympathy for Russia, shows in the microcosm how the Kremlin sought to gain influence and sow discord in Europe’s former communist eastern fringe, leveraging spies, paid helpers, nationalists right-wing groups and media that spread disinformation.
“We always suspected this was happening, but now we have a smoking gun,” says Daniel Milo, director of a unit at the Slovak Interior Ministry responsible for monitoring and fighting disinformation. “This is a clear example of how the Russians operate.” Garbar, he adds, “is just the tip of the iceberg. We still don’t know how many others are running around.”
Video of the encounter was recorded last year by Slovakia’s intelligence agency as part of a long investigation. Solomasov was expelled early last month, among the more than 30 Russian diplomats recently sent back from Bratislava, as well as many from other European capitals.
Arrested and charged with espionage and bribery, Garbar was released pending trial. The former deputy dean of the military academy was also accused of betraying his country to Russia for money. Authorities say both have confessed and are now cooperating. “They are talking and talking and talking and that must make the Russian network in Slovakia very nervous,” Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad said.
Moscow did not comment on Garbar’s connection to Russian intelligence, but called Solomasov’s expulsion groundless.
Though an unlikely enabler, Garbar proved to be a valuable channel that donated large sums to nationalist parties attracted to Moscow. One of the beneficiaries was the ultranationalist Marian Kotleba, who received a six-month prison sentence (suspended this month) and was removed from his seat in Parliament for using Nazi-themed symbols.
After winning the election as regional governor in 2013, Kotleba posted a banner outside his office: “Yankees, go home! STOP NATO!”
Records show that Garbar donated €10,000 to Kotleba’s xenophobic party ahead of the 2016 election, making him its second-biggest donor. Kotleba’s campaign slogans included “For Slavic brotherhood, against a war with Russia!”. In 2018, Garbar donated a further 4,500 euros to one of Kotleba’s pro-Russian partners.
Investigators also examined Garbar’s work as an unpaid contributor and translator for Hlavne Spravy (Main News). Slovak authorities closed the website, which calls itself a “conservative daily”, in early March for unspecified “harmful activities”, shortly after the start of the Ukrainian War.
He still operates, in a reduced form, on Facebook — which Victor Breiner, an adviser to the Slovak defense minister, described as “the current main arena for Kremlin propaganda”.
In the weeks leading up to the war, Hlavne Spravy often repeated Kremlin talking points, scoffing at US warnings of an imminent attack as “endless hysteria” and blaming NATO for rising tensions.
Robert Sopko, founder and editor of the site, which he runs from his apartment in Kosice, dismissed the security service video — published by rival, liberal media outlet Dennik N — as a “spoof of spying” and said he didn’t know. of his unpaid aide’s work for Russian intelligence. “We were all very surprised by this, everyone who knows him.”
Sopko argues that Hlavne Spravy was not overly pro-Russian, although he admitted that “we may have rooted for Russia a little more” to combat what he calls “American propaganda”. He also acknowledges that for four years he was on the team Yevgeny Palcev, who has ties to Moscow’s state media and has written fiercely pro-Kremlin articles under a pseudonym.
He says he has known Garbar for 30 years and insists that his old friend only wrote occasional articles about China. The authorities claim otherwise. “He was very involved in writing about many things beyond China” and in spreading “classic Russian propaganda narratives,” said Minister Nad.
Miroslava Sawiris, a disinformation expert and member of the Slovak government’s Security Council, says Hlavne Spravy was “quite sophisticated and not just spewing nonsense.” She says that overtly pro-Kremlin stories accounted for about 20% of the content, but gained unusual reach and influence due to the site’s popularity.
Like many other Russian-friendly media, Hlavne Spravy was thrown off balance by Putin’s attack on Ukraine and struggled for several days to explain it. Sopko says that he and the team decided that Russia should be criticized, just as “we criticized US imperialist wars”, but that the site was then closed.
In the video of his meeting with the Russian spy, Garbar explains that finding useful people to work for Moscow can be difficult, because those who support Russia tend to be fringe types with no real influence or access to information. “There are a lot of irrelevant pro-Russia people,” Garbar warned Solomasov. “They wouldn’t give you anything.”
Garbar’s uncle says he was baffled that his nephew, who has always been fascinated by American culture, particularly bands like Metallica, would get involved with Russia. “This whole thing is very strange.”
Sawiris, the government’s expert on disinformation, says she doesn’t know what happened to Garbar, but fears that “there is no limit to the impact propaganda can have on the human mind.” Since Russia invaded Ukraine, she adds, “the curtain has fallen and many things have become obvious.”
