Sweden’s security police (Säpo) considered him such a dangerous threat that he was kept under daily surveillance. But in June 2023, Viktor Gaziev disappeared – and now he has been found in Ukraine where he has become a celebrated drone expert, received awards and met President Zelensky.
He claims that Swedish authorities pressured him to go to war and escorted him there.
Viktor Gaziev was one of the so-called six imams who in 2019 were classified as a serious threat to Sweden’s national security. The Swedish government decided to deport him, but the deportation was never carried out – Gaziev was deemed at risk of torture and persecution in his homeland Russia.
Instead, the radical Islamist was kept under extensive surveillance with daily reporting requirements to police. Until he suddenly disappeared.
Swedish public television SVT’s investigative program Uppdrag granskning has now tracked him down – not in Sweden, but as a drone specialist in the Ukrainian army.
Pressured to go to war
How did an internationally wanted person without travel documents and with daily reporting requirements at Gävle police station in central Sweden end up in Ukraine?
Gaziev himself describes it as the result of pressure from Sweden’s Security Police (Säpo). He claims that Säpo arranged a private meeting with his ex-wife and urged her to persuade him to leave. The incentive was allegedly a promise that the agency would not hinder her application for Swedish citizenship.
Several other people classified as security threats confirm to Uppdrag granskning that they received similar proposals to go to Ukraine.
However, Security Police operational chief Fredrik Hallström completely rejects the claims: “We do not conduct the type of activities alleged here”, he maintains, continuing:
— We do not suggest or try to persuade anyone to travel to a specific place. Least of all to war-torn Ukraine.
Military intelligence contact planned the trip
In chat conversations that Uppdrag granskning has accessed, it emerges how the trip to Ukraine was planned in detail. A person who identifies himself as a Swedish soldier discusses flight tickets to Poland and which border crossing they should use. Gaziev claims the person works for MUST, Sweden’s military intelligence service.
In the chat, Gaziev sends his bank details and shows military equipment he bought for the war. According to Gaziev, it was his contact person at the Security Police who gave him the contact to MUST.
— They talked to the military service in Poland. It was a man and a woman who flew with me to Warsaw without documents, without a passport, just a Swedish driver’s license.
MUST has refused to comment on the allegations at all.
Ukrainian commander confirms Swedish involvement
However, Murad Zumzo, a commander in the Ukrainian army, gives a completely different picture than Säpo. He says he spoke on the phone with a Swedish person who matched the name in the chat – and that the Swede had a central role in getting Gaziev to Ukraine.
— He made contact and took him to the Polish-Ukrainian border. I sent two of my guys there. The Swedes and Poles handed him over, says Zumzo.
Viktor Gaziev is clear that he would not have joined the war without Swedish authorities’ involvement and he took Säpo’s alleged promise about citizenship for his ex-wife very seriously.
But today he believes he was manipulated – his ex-wife was denied her citizenship application with reference to information from the Security Police itself.
