Israel nabs Russian spy working for Iran after he filmed Israeli ports & infrastructure

Israeli security forces arrested a Russian citizen who spied on behalf of the Iranian intelligence service, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet and the Defense Ministry announced on Friday.

Vitaly Zvyagintsev (30), a foreign worker, was arrested in a joint operation by Shin Bet and the Defense Ministry’s security unit earlier this month.

The Central District Prosecutor’s Office filed an indictment against him in the court on Friday.

According to the statement, Zvyagintsev began working on behalf of an Iranian intelligence handler who called himself “Roman” and claimed to reside in Russia in October 2025.

Under the guise of being a tourist, Zvyagintsev began to take pictures and film of infrastructure and ships at ports throughout Israel at “Roman’s” direction, in exchange for digital payments.

According to Army Radio, he initially carried only a simple Chinese-made Xiaomi phone but – at Roman’s instruction – upgraded to a new Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra to improve his video quality.

Israeli intelligence officials believe Zvyagintsev understood that the requests were espionage missions by actors hostile to Israel, but persisted in carrying them out due to financial motivations.

Army Radio, citing the indictment, reported that Zvyagintsev filmed dozens of videos – each several minutes long –of some of Israel’s most sensitive facilities.

The report stated that Zvyagintsev sent the Iranian handles approximately 15 minutes of video footage showing the Port of Haifa, filmed from the Baháʼí Gardens located on a hill above the port.

At one point, while filming at Herzliya Marina, security guards became suspicious and called the police. However, the officers only ordered him to delete the videos before releasing him, allowing Zvyagintsev to continue his spy missions.

He subsequently filmed around 15 minutes of footage at the Port of Ashdod, before driving to Eilat and trying to film an American AMC-type warship and an Israeli Dolphin-class submarine. While the indictment isn’t clear on whether he managed to get good footage of the ships, it says that he filmed long videos of “the ships located in the port.”

Zvyagintsev later returned to Haifa to capture footage of the strategically important oil refineries, which are one of the main targets hit by Iranian missiles during Operation Rising Lion. He filmed five separate videos showing the refineries from different angles, presumably to allow the Iranians to assess the damage wrought by their missile and the repair works.

After about two months, the Russian spy was arrested earlier in December when he tried to film the Ramat David Air Force Base. Security forces apprehended him before he could send the footage to Roman.

Zvyagintsev’s case is among the most significant in a series of incidents of Iranian espionage in Israel, most of them involving Israeli citizens.