Karen Malayan addresses Europe as the voice of Russian president Vladimir Putin, yet his unconventional background prompts scrutiny: Might the interim chief of Russia’s delegation to the EU represent another operative dispatched to enlist contacts, acquire confidential data, and guide disruptive actions?

Observers recognize Malayan in formal images through his thinning hair, rimless spectacles, and subtle smile.

The approachable 55-year-old, wed with a single child, joined Russia’s EU mission in Brussels during 2015 and assumed the role of temporary mission head in 2024.

He maintained profiles across Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, OK.ru, X, and the embassy site, where he consistently echoed official Kremlin statements.

Previously he engaged EU personnel, diplomats, Russia-sympathetic parliamentarians, and business leaders from Europe.

These days Malayan conducts minimal direct diplomacy with EU counterparts owing to restrictions placed on Russia following the full-scale Ukraine invasion in 2022.

EU cold shoulder

Russian representatives now face near-total exclusion from the European Commission and receive no access to the EU Council, European Parliament, or missions from the 27 member countries, while also being avoided by Brussels research centers and advocacy groups.

“All commission services have suspended any bilateral engagement with Russian state representatives,” said EU foreign service spokeswoman Anitta Hipper.

“In practice, a number of meetings have taken place in the EEAS since 2022 with representatives of the Russian mission to the EU, aimed at communicating EU positions, or discussing matters of operational engagement, among others, staff matters of the EU delegation in Moscow,” she said.

The EU Council said: “There is a suspension of access to the council premises for Russian diplomats.”

EU ambassadors in the Coreper II group could theoretically request Russian attendance at sessions or lower-level discussions as occurred before 2022, a Council spokesman noted, yet none have extended such invitations since the full invasion, preferring instead to host figures such as Yulia Navalnaya.

The 27 member states’ EU embassies follow identical practices.

“We don’t meet with Russian diplomats, don’t invite them to our events, and don’t attend theirs,” said a Czech diplomat, reflecting the stance of Austria, the Baltic states, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain.

Even Slovakia, under the EU’s most Russia-leaning prime minister Robert Fico, maintains the common line.

“In line with the political approach agreed by all EU member states in 2022, the permanent representation of the Slovak Republic to the EU does not invite representatives of the Russian federation to events it organises, nor does it hold bilateral meetings with individual Russian diplomats,” the Slovak foreign ministry told EUobserver.

The EU Parliament said: “Since March 2022, diplomatic and government staff of Russia and Belarus are banned from entering the premises, as well as EP liaison offices inside and outside the EU.”

MEPs could theoretically hold off-site encounters with Russians.

Yet the centre-right European Peoples’ Party and rightwing European Conservatives and Reformists, the Socialists and Democrats and The Left, liberal Renew Europe, and the Green groups, representing 577 of parliament’s 720 MEPs, informed EUobserver that their members refrain from such contacts.

The two far-right, pro-Russian groups - Patriots for Europe and Europe of Sovereign Nations, with 122 MEPs - offered no response.

Still, their entries in the EP’s transparency register suggest they likewise steer clear of Malayan.

MEPs from the PfE and ESN’s most openly pro-Kremlin national delegations declared numerous contacts with Chinese, US, and Israeli diplomats plus tobacco industry representatives both inside and outside parliament buildings during 2024 and 2025, yet recorded none with Russians.

MEPs from Fico’s unattached Smer party likewise listed zero Russian meetings.

Leading Brussels research centers such as the European Policy Centre or Friends of Europe indicated they would not host Malayan.

Even the hard-right MCC Corvinus think-tank, connected to Fidesz, told EUobserver: “We have no relations with Russian diplomats.”

And EU lobby firms were legally barred from Russia-related work in June 2022.

Malayan’s Brussels friends

The EU restrictions do not leave Malayan and his team without interlocutors.

The EU, Nato, and Belgian capital together host 187 embassies, 94 permanent representations, and 131 international organisations, according to the Belgian foreign ministry.

There are 13,099 individuals holding diplomatic status in Belgium, including 5,983 diplomats and 7,116 relatives.

And as evidence of how many might welcome Russian officials for social events, 39 UN member states either supported Russia or abstained in the most recent UN General Assembly vote on the Ukraine conflict, among them China, India, Iran, Pakistan, and South Africa, plus Belarus and Central Asian nations.

Malayan and his team remain free to engage any of the 1,700 international companies with Brussels offices.

Russian missions arrange gatherings with the roughly 30,000-strong Russian community in Belgium, many of whom support Putin, and with the 18 Russian Orthodox parishes in the country.

Russian diplomats posted in Belgium may travel throughout the 25 EU countries plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland within the Schengen zone, though with more limitations than previously.

Belgium declined to disclose current Russian diplomat numbers, citing data-protection rules.

Yet the figure stood near 210 in 2022 when counting staff at Russia’s embassies to Belgium and the EU plus consulates in Brussels and Antwerp.

And Malayan’s EU mission retained around 45 diplomatic positions and 15 technical roles as of July 2026, according to a Western intelligence source.

Russia’s property holdings in Belgium further reveal the scale of its presence.

These include Malayan’s EU embassy, a 2,200 square-metre mansion dating from the 1890s formerly owned by a Belgian baron and located beside the US embassy in the central EU diplomatic area.

Russia maintains a 46,000 square-metre secure facility at 66 Avenue de Fré in Brussels’ leafy Uccle district, encompassing Russia’s bilateral embassy to Belgium, the ambassador’s residence, and the former Nato mission closed in 2021.

Its Brussels consulate sits at 78 Rue Robert Jones, also in Uccle, a neighborhood favored by many Russian diplomats and families, while its second consulate operates in central Antwerp at 160 Jan van Rijswijcklaan, Belgium’s commercial center.

The Hôtel Brugmann, Avenue de Fré, and Jan van Rijswijcklaan sites have long histories as Russian intelligence hubs.

Belgium has expelled 68 Russian diplomats from these three addresses since 2022 on espionage grounds, the country’s intelligence service VSSE has stated.

Russia has also equipped its properties with surveillance capabilities, installing 17 signals-intelligence antennas atop the Avenue de Fré complex, Belgian daily De Tijd reported in 2023.

When Belgium has expelled operatives in earlier cases, Russia has dispatched replacements to occupy the vacated diplomatic slots, the VSSE has cautioned.

Europe has therefore adopted a revised strategy.

EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas stated in February that Malayan must reduce his staffing by one third for security reasons: “We will not tolerate abuse of diplomatic power”, she said at the time.

The EU also invoked the requirement for “closer parity” with its smaller Moscow mission under Article 11 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, allowing host entities to limit foreign missions to a “reasonable and normal” scale relative to operational needs.

“The Russian mission to the EU was notified it should cap its size at 40 staff, starting from 1 September 2026,” Hipper, Kallas’ spokeswoman, told EUobserver.

But “this number does not include the head of the mission,” Hipper said.

CV red flags

Given the Kremlin’s established intelligence record in Brussels, this naturally raises whether Malayan merely socializes with Chinese counterparts and attends community events in his abundant spare time, or whether he pursues additional covert activities.

The initial step toward answers lies in his professional record, to determine whether it appears legitimate or contains gaps suggestive of a fabricated biography for yet another intelligence placement.