The war in Ukraine has prompted Western allies to closely examine how deeply Russian agents have infiltrated their intelligence services since the end of World War II. A key document in this investigation is the archive of Vasily Mitrokhin, a former head of the KGB archives, which was passed on to the British. Through these files, the French, long proud of their intelligence services’ secrecy, uncovered a wealth of unsettling—and often tragic—details.
Recently, Le Monde, one of France’s leading daily papers, published an investigation focused on one such agent, Pierre Chaignot. According to the report, during the 1950s, Chaignot betrayed 15 French intelligence officers to Moscow. He also likely exposed 11 Americans, 3 British, 1 Swede, and 76 more French agents who were gathering intelligence on the Soviet Union.
In what might seem like a tired cliché, Le Monde notes that Chaignot’s betrayal was motivated by a woman. Her name was likely Valentina Yukum, though Soviet archives list her as Jadwiga Wilgemovna Tous—”a KGB agent of Estonian descent, translator for the Soviet military administration.” The two met in war-ravaged Berlin in 1945 and remained together until death. “Lydia Taus, whose true name was Valentina Yukum, passed away on October 7, 1999, in Paris, while Pierre Chaignot died on April 13, 2007, in Tuar, in the Deux-Sèvres department,” Le Monde reports.
“On a personal level, Mr. Chaignot seemed like a man of weak character, entirely under the influence of the older woman who chose to end what had been a rather tumultuous life up until their decision to marry,” recalled colleagues of the traitor.
The sheer volume of intelligence this pair of lovers passed on to Moscow is staggering. “Just three years after agreeing to work for Moscow, Pierre Chaignot delivered a ‘large number of valuable documents.’ Based on his testimony, several French intelligence agents were arrested and executed,” the media reports.
How did it come to pass that, in the high offices of Paris, where the secrecy of their intelligence operations was a point of pride, this seemingly sweet couple was working right under their noses? The investigation points out that the archives of the French Berlin mission, part of the Western Berlin Territorial Surveillance Brigade, were destroyed. Yet, colleagues recalled Pierre Chaignot as the perfect agent. However, the Mitrokhin archive, which was handed over to the British in 1992, contains a telling detail. “The Allied services kept the French mission at a distance,” Le Monde cites from the document. “It had a reputation for being leaky, more focused on purging Nazi collaborators than tracking Soviet agents.”
For years, France avoided directly confronting Russian influence. But now, the time has come for a reckoning. The arrest of chef-agent Kirill Gryaznov, who had been orchestrating provocations during the recent Olympic Games in Paris, has jolted many who clung to the illusion of “good Russians and a bad Putin.” Gryaznov was detained by French intelligence services in July of last year, with evidence linking him to espionage activities. As reported by The Insider, Gryaznov didn’t make much of an effort to hide his true role. In 2012, for instance, he wrote to his landlord in France: “I’m doing fine, I’m in Moscow, working for the state!”—despite there being no evidence he worked for any state-run companies or organisations. Back then, in the peaceful world of 2012, most ordinary French citizens didn’t question Russians working for the Kremlin. But a decade later, that trust has given way to a painful truth—one that’s hard to accept: Putin and the vast majority of Russians are united in their aggression and barbarism.
Have the French become wiser over the past three years of full-scale war? One might hope so, but reality doesn’t always provide reasons for optimism. Take, for instance, a recent development: the influential French weekly Marianne appointed Frédéric Taddeï as its new editor-in-chief. Taddeï, a former employee of the Russian propaganda channel RT, now heads a magazine owned by Czech conglomerate Czech Media Invest (CMI), which is controlled by Czech businessman Daniel Kretinsky. Kretinsky also owns major publications like Elle, Télé 7 Jours, and Franc-Tireur. Taddeï worked at RT from 2018 to 2022, and as The Ukrainian Week has reported, Kretinsky is also a partner of Russia’s Gazprom.
The war is being waged on many fronts, and in the information space, Moscow is targeting its Western partners with an aggressive mix of money and technology. Not everyone is able—or willing—to resist the temptation, and many remain reluctant to fully grasp the deadly threat the Kremlin poses to the free world.
