Montenegro arrests the founder of Rybar and declares him a threat: Medvedev cries "a hunt on all Russians"

Risan, Bay of Kotor, Friday morning. Montenegrin police and the National Security Agency detained several Russian citizens on the tourist coast: Mikhail Zvinchuk, founder of Rybar, his wife Valeria and three associates. Before the day was out, the Interior Ministry announced its decision: the five are a threat to national security and will be expelled from the country.

Rybar is not an ordinary blog. The project was founded in 2018, its Telegram channel has more than a million followers, and during the war in Ukraine it became one of the most-read pro-Russian sources, with detailed maps of the front. Zvinchuk previously worked within the structures of the Russian Ministry of Defence. Britain sanctioned him last year, claiming the network cooperates with Russian intelligence services, is partly coordinated by Vladimir Putin's administration and is funded by the state corporation Rostec. In 2024 the US State Department offered up to 10 million dollars for information related to interference in US elections, including about people from this project.

Podgorica detained them on suspicion of so-called hybrid activities. Equipment was seized from the Russians - a drone, a camera and mobile phones - and sent for forensic examination to establish what it was actually being used for in Montenegro. Podgorica's daily press, citing security sources, claims Zvinchuk is a colonel in Russia's GRU military intelligence, in charge of hybrid operations. There is no independent confirmation of that claim so far.

Rybar tells a completely different story: the team was in Montenegro legally, planned to film the Cetinje Monastery and had filed an official request in advance. A drone and a camera in front of one of the most important Orthodox symbols in the Balkans - is that a tourist postcard, or content for an audience of a million with a clear political agenda? The answer probably depends on whom you ask in Moscow and whom in Podgorica.

Prime Minister Milojko Spajić called the operation a success and wrote on X that the country "is defending its interests and no one will endanger Montenegro's European future". Moscow responded in order, from quietest to loudest. Maria Zakharova said the Russian embassy in Podgorica was establishing the circumstances. Dmitry Peskov promised diplomats would protect Zvinchuk's rights "like those of any Russian citizen". And then Dmitry Medvedev weighed in.

"A hunt has potentially been declared on all Russians - I stress, all," Medvedev said, adding that neither visas nor invitations help, and that Moscow may have to "replenish the exchange fund" with Europeans and Americans to get its own people out. He wrapped it up with a proverb: if you live with wolves, you have to howl like one.

Montenegro has been a NATO member since 2017 and is seen as the closest of the whole region to joining the EU, yet for a long time it was a favourite destination for Russian tourists and buyers of seaside property. Now a small country of some six hundred thousand people is expelling a man whose project Washington offered up to 10 million dollars for information about - and doing it loudly, with an announcement from the prime minister. Is this a rare show of backbone in the Balkans, or just a message to Brussels sent at the right moment? And how many such "teams with a drone and a camera" pass through the region without anyone asking what they are filming?