‘There were hundreds of us’: Navalny ex-staffer tells of being FSB informer

Former anti-corruption activist who has fled to Netherlands tells how Russian state infiltrated opposition

When Mikhail Sokolov signed up to work for the FSB security services, he never imagined his journey would end here: in a crowded refugee camp on the outskirts of a sleepy town in the rural Netherlands.

The last six years were a rollercoaster. I am happy I am no longer in the claws of the FSB," the former FSB informant and staffer for the jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny's anti-corruption network said in an interview with the Guardian this week.