Exclusive: IAEA Chief Grossi endorsed his Russian No. 2 man's bigoted literary output

 ROME – IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi evidently endorsed the literary career of his Russian Number 2 man, Mikhail Chudakov, who was canned by the UN agency this month after the Italian Insider disclosed the Russian lambasted “gays, lesbians and other perverts and sodomites” and said that women only exist to seduce men. Grossi may have supported the Russian’s bigoted nationalist tomes in part because the IAEA legal office probably rubber stamped them under regulations at the agency governing publications by senior executives, UN sources say.

 A photograph on the Russian website atomic-energy.ru https://www.atomic-energy.ru/news/2025/06/11/156665 shows Grossi holding up a 400 page tome entitled “Master of the Coffin,”  which Chudakov published under the pseudonym Valentin Voyutin. Master of the Coffin was an autobiographical novel separate from his now notorious separate work “Treatise on Life” in which he said Russia should have crushed Ukrainian independence by using the violent methods employed by the Chinese Communist authorities at Tiananmen Square.

Chudakov spoke about his distasteful work, published privately, at a gathering of young nuclear engineers who belong to a club promoted by the IAEA, which officially supports the careers of women nuclear engineers through its Marie Curie programme, sources at the agency told the Insider. The head of the club subsequently apologised and Chudakov was suspended after a former American representative to the UN agencies in Vienna evidently read the Italian Insider article and complained to the IAEA ethics office.

Although Grossi may not specifically have advertised in person the Treatise on Life as well as the sinister titled Master of the Coffin, IAEA sources said the Argentinian candidate to be UN secretary general clearly had no problem backing the Russian’s bizarre literary career. This was probably because one or both books were officially endorsed first by the IAEA legal office and then by Grossi, the sources added.

 “According to the Agency Rules and Regulations to publish “lawfully” a book Chudakov must have asked the DG for permission,” a well placed former IAEA employee said. “The fact that Grossi holds one of his books, means that Grossi authorised him. OLA, the Legal office led by African-American Peri-Lyyne Johnson, should have approved it.“

“It could be that Chudakov actually handed his books over to OLA requesting permission to publish, Johnon didn’t even have someone checking the contents, gave the approval and that was it.”

“Otherwise why would Grossi endorse Chudakov’s book? Grossi does not read Russian. He endorsed it because it was an Agency endorsed publication of Chudakov’s under a pseudonym. The agency is evidently responsible.”   

“I guess Grossi was handed the book and pictured holding it,” an IAEA source told the Insider. “The book was distributed for free at Russian gatherings,” in Vienna. “Chudakov used a pseudonym but did not make it a secret. It is a novel, characters speak against LGBT people etc … the novel is an autobiographical one apparently, that is why the comments have relevance.”

One of his former employees at the agency described Chudakov as “a narcisstic drunk. He was often drunk at Russian gatherings. He is the Brezhnev or Yeltsin type, sleeping with the bottle under the pillow.”

“An old fashioned Russian drunkard, I wouldn’t be surprised if he wrote the novel in a drunken stupor”

Chudakov was parked at the IAEA in Vienna by Rossatom “simply to get rid of him, so stupid was he,” the source added.

“Was he spying for the Russian government? Most probably. However it is not clear what he could provide. The true IAEA ‘secrets’ are in the Safeguards part and which he didn’t have access to.”

“Safeguards at the IAEA is fully guarded and most simple staff cannot access it. There is speculation that it contains delicate information such as on Iran or the Zaporizhzhia plant in Ukraine, occupied by the Russians”

“In the end the IAEA is an arm of the U.S. Department of Defense, which has top managers sprad over the agency. The infiltration is done via DoE’s Argonne Laboratory, for example.”

“The head of Safeguards is an Italian, Massimo Aparo.”

“What should your attitude be towards gays, lesbians and other perverts and sodomites?” Chudakov, 60, asks in his treatise. “There are many sinful deviations from normal life in the world. You cannot allow this poison to corrupt the youth. These perversions completely contradict biblical principles and Orthodoxy."

  “Always remember that a woman is made to seduce men,” he continued, “that is her purpose”

 “Never support feminist movements, so trendy today and never fight for women’s rights. There are plenty of such fighters without you. Women already have more rights than men and those leading the fight are hysterical fanatics, dissatisfied with family life, lonely and scary, man-like whom no one will marry.”