The GRU family: How Russian intelligence officers settled in Norway

Colonel Sergei Belousov has held the position of military attaché at the Russian embassy in Oslo since around the middle of 2025. According to leaked data, Belousov is registered at a dormitory at 4 Devichye Pole Drive in Moscow, which the Dossier Centre describes as accommodation for career GRU officers.

Military attachés working at embassies are standard practice for diplomatic missions around the world. Their role is to maintain contacts with the host country’s military and defence authorities, monitor security issues and military cooperation, and perform other official duties. This is legitimate and official work. However, military attachés operate in an environment of great interest to intelligence services, meaning such positions are also frequently used by career military intelligence officers.

The identity of Sergei Belousov’s wife, Marina, is of no less interest. According to leaked databases, from 2012 she was registered at several addresses in Moscow associated with the GRU: on Grizodubovoy Street, where service flats for military intelligence officers are located, as well as at 52 Narodnogo Opolcheniya Street and 4 Marshal Biryuzov Street, both of which contain dormitories belonging to the Military Diplomatic Academy.

A Russian intelligence officer, Mikhail Mikushin, who posed as Brazilian citizen José Assis Giammaria, was also registered at one of these addresses. Norwegian authorities arrested him in 2022, and he later became part of a major prisoner exchange between Russia and Western countries. At the time of his undercover activities, he was working at UiT The Arctic University of Norway.

Another GRU-operative who lived at the dormitory at 4 Marshal Biryuzov Street in Moscow when he was studying was Anatoly Chepiga. Investigators from Bellingcat and The Insider identified him as “Ruslan Boshirov”, one of two Russians accused by the UK of poisoning Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury in 2018. The address at 52 Narodnogo Opolcheniya Street was also used to register officers being trained for intelligence work abroad, including under diplomatic cover.

Another address associated with Marina Belousova in the leaked data is a building at 22 Polina Osipenko Street. The street leads directly to the GRU complex at 76 Khoroshovskoye Highway. This feature of the address had previously appeared in an investigation by The Insider and Bellingcat into GRU officer Oleg Ivannikov (“Orion”), whom the investigators linked to the delivery and deployment of the Russian Buk missile system used to shoot down passenger flight MH17 from the skies over Ukraine 2014.

Based on publicly available information, none of Belousova’s family members, including her father, appears to have any connection with military service or intelligence. It therefore seems likely that she herself attended a GRU training institution and lived at these addresses in connection with her professional activities. According to the leaked data, however, Belousova is today an employee of Russia’s Foreign Ministry.

The Belousovs previously worked at another Russian embassy, in The Hague. In 2020, they joined other military diplomats in celebrating Defender of the Fatherland Day at the embassy.

Another GRU family living at the embassy is the Sverdlik family. They moved to Oslo at roughly the same time as the Belousovs, in 2025. In Norway’s diplomatic list, he is identified as a major. Like Marina Belousova, Pavel Sverdlik was also registered at 50 Narodnogo Opolcheniya Street and later, apparently after completing his training, moved with his family to a new flat. In 2017, Sverdlik contacted the police after an unidentified person stole his “officer’s identification card”.

Pavel Sverdlik’s wife, Anastasia, also worked within structures belonging to the Ministry of Defence. From the 2010s onwards, she was the senior editor of Foreign Military Review, a Russian Defence Ministry publication devoted to the armed forces of foreign countries, military policy and weapons. The latest issue of the magazine in which she is listed under her maiden name, Petrushina, was published in 2024.

A year earlier, Anastasia Sverdlik was one of the editors of an article by Colonel Tulovsky entitled “The Armed Forces of Norway in NATO’s Modern Hybrid War”. She also edited material on other aspects of Norwegian defence policy, including an article about Norway’s space programmes in the Arctic.

The magazine’s publications regularly drew on intelligence and military analytical material.

According to leaked data, Sverdlik was also linked to military unit No. 45807. Russian registers list Igor Kostyukov, head of the Main Directorate of the General Staff, as the commander of this unit, linking it to Russian military intelligence. The same address is also home to a complex of GRU buildings.

Intelligence officers expelled — new ones arrive

Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Norway has repeatedly reduced the number of Russian officials in the country whom the authorities suspected of espionage. In April 2022, Oslo expelled three Russian diplomats, identifying them as intelligence officers. A year later, Norway declared 15 Russian embassy employees persona non grata. According to the Norwegian authorities, they were working for Russian intelligence services under diplomatic cover and engaging in activities incompatible with their diplomatic status.

The Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) later clarified that those expelled included officers from the GRU, SVR and FSB. According to the service, they were engaged in recruiting sources, intercepting communications and attempting to gain access to advanced technologies. Norwegian authorities said they had monitored their activities for an extended period and regarded Russia as the country’s primary intelligence threat. In response, Moscow expelled ten Norwegian diplomats, including members of the military attaché’s office.

One of the diplomats expelled in 2023 may have been Alexei Aleksandrovich Andreev, born in 1977. He was identified from a photograph posted on the embassy’s Instagram account. Before his presumed expulsion, he worked at the Russian embassy in Oslo under the previous ambassador, Taimuraz Ramishvili.

According to leaked Russian Interior Ministry registration data, Andreev was registered at 76B Khoroshovskoye Highway, where the complex belonging to the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces — the country’s military intelligence service — is located.

The Barents Observer was able to identify Aleksandr Kosarev from photographs. Like Andreev, he worked for the GRU General Staff and was registered at 76 Khoroshovskoye Highway. He was probably also expelled by the Norwegian authorities.

The Norwegian authorities have not disclosed the names of the diplomats who were expelled in 2022 and 2023.

Another GRU officer with extensive diplomatic experience is Andrei Chemerilo, Russia’s consul general in Barentsburg on Svalbard. Norwegian broadcaster NRK and the Dossier Centre linked him to Russian military intelligence. One of the grounds cited was his previous registration at 50 Narodnogo Opolcheniya Street, a dormitory belonging to the Military Diplomatic Academy where GRU officers were trained. Chemerilo has denied any connection to the intelligence services.

The Barents Observer contacted the Russian embassy to request a response concerning the diplomats’ missions. At the time of publication, no response had been received.

Moscow’s diplomatic missions in Oslo, Kirkenes and Barentsburg have no tradition of answering questions from the Barents Observer.

FSB officers in Kirkenes

The Barents Observer previously reported that at least two people with backgrounds in the FSB border service were working at the Russian Consulate General in Kirkenes. One of them was Nikolai Ruzaev, who worked at the consulate as a security guard. According to leaked data, he had previously served in military units No. 2450 and No. 9594, which belong to the FSB Border Service system. After the article was published, Ruzaev and his wife left Norway.

Soon after his departure, Denis Kurilov appeared in Kirkenes. According to leaked databases, he served from 2017 to 2023 in military unit No. 9804 in the Yaroslavl region, which is also part of the FSB border troops. Kurilov does not have diplomatic status in Norway, but lives in the Russian Consulate General building and takes part in its public events. In September 2025, journalists also spotted him at a meeting between representatives of the Norwegian military and a delegation from the FSB Border Service.