The car accident involving Slovenian President Nataša Pirc Musar in late July 2026 raised a number of questions not only regarding the organisation of her security but also concerning potential shortcomings and significant counterintelligence gaps in the protection of the head of state. The incident attracted additional attention because the President was accompanied in the vehicle by her longtime friend, Viktoria Krivolutskaya, a native of Russia who was subsequently reported to have previously been in a relationship with Roman Jeglič, a former senior Slovenian intelligence official who had lived in Russia since the mid-1990s.
President Nataša Pirc Musar had known Krivolutskaya for more than two decades, with the latter forming part of the President’s close personal circle. Their relationship was based not only on friendship and a shared interest in bowling, but also on business ties. In 2010, Krivolutskaya became an authorised representative of Net Produkcija, a company founded by Pirc Musar whose declared business activity was business consulting. Subsequently, the company’s activities related to the supply of sports equipment were separated into a standalone entity, Net Pro Shop d.o.o., which was headed by Krivolutskaya.
Journalists subsequently drew attention to the fact that, according to registration documents dating from 2010, Krivolutskaya listed an apartment in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, as her place of residence. The same address was reportedly associated with Roman Jeglič, a former Slovenian intelligence official who had fled the country.
According to the Slovenian newspaper Dnevnik, after this information became public, Krivolutskaya confirmed that she and Jeglič had been in a relationship and had lived together in Russia, but claimed that she had had no contact with him for more than 15 years. Jeglič served as Deputy Director of Slovenia’s Security and Information Service (VIS) from 1991 to 1993, the predecessor of the present-day Slovenian Intelligence and Security Agency (SOVA).
In the mid-1990s, criminal proceedings were initiated against Jeglič in Slovenia over his alleged links to the organisers of the Catch the Cash financial pyramid scheme, which defrauded thousands of Slovenian citizens of substantial sums of money. According to his then superior, Miha Brejc, Jeglič was “deeply involved in the scheme, profited from it and even attempted to recruit colleagues.” Following his escape from Slovenia, he was traced to Krasnoyarsk, where he reportedly represented and sold products manufactured by Slovenian household-appliance companies Gorenje and Iskra.
Following the car incident, information also emerged concerning Pirc Musar’s previous trips to Russia with Krivolutskaya. According to Slovenian journalists, the two women travelled to Russia at least seven times from 2015 onwards, most recently in late December 2021, when the future President spent New Year’s Eve in Russia — less than two months before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The President’s Office subsequently described these trips as being undertaken for “private and tourist purposes.”
Significantly, SOVA had already conducted a security assessment of Krivolutskaya in 2016 as part of the process of granting her Slovenian citizenship. At that time, the agency reportedly found no formal grounds that would have prevented her naturalisation. Since then, however, her close friend has become the President of Slovenia, a position involving access to classified information, intelligence assessments, high-level international negotiations and contacts within the EU and NATO. This raises the question of whether a renewed and more comprehensive security assessment of the President’s immediate circle should have been conducted after Pirc Musar assumed office, taking into account the substantially increased level of access to the head of state and potentially sensitive information.
The case also exposed a potential issue concerning the division of responsibilities between Slovenia’s security institutions. Presidential protection is provided by a specialised unit operating within the President’s Office, whose role is primarily police-oriented and focused on physical protection rather than counterintelligence. Responsibility for identifying and assessing threats posed by foreign intelligence services, meanwhile, lies with SOVA. This division of responsibilities raises the question of which institution should have initiated a renewed counterintelligence assessment of an individual who, following Pirc Musar’s election, gained direct and regular access to the head of state.
Commenting on the situation on 17 August 2026 on 24UR ZVEČER, former SOVA Director and current security expert Rajko Kozmel noted that foreign intelligence services frequently employ “soft approaches” to gain access to senior officials through members of their immediate circle. According to Kozmel, such individuals can be used to obtain information about a politician’s positions, travel, contacts and personal environment, as well as to attempt to influence their views.
The case involving the Slovenian President’s close associate therefore points to a broader issue than merely the division of responsibilities between security institutions. It demonstrates how existing gaps in counterintelligence protection could, in theory, create a potential channel of access to the President through a member of her immediate circle. At the same time, the publicly available information does not in itself establish that Krivolutskaya cooperated with Russian intelligence services.
The key concern is therefore not proof of such cooperation, but whether these circumstances should have triggered a more comprehensive risk assessment after Pirc Musar became President. Experience and numerous cases in other countries demonstrate that Russian intelligence services employ a wide range of channels and methods to gain access to sensitive information and senior officials. The immediate personal circle of a head of state is consequently one of the most obvious areas requiring sustained counterintelligence attention.