The paper discusses collaboration, competition, and clashes between the Soviet and Yugoslav security apparatus in Yugoslavia on the backs of Russian émigrés in Yugoslavia, between the entry of the Red Army into Yugoslavia and the mid-1950s. The Yugoslav security agency, OZNA, had been developed under Soviet influence, which was further enhanced during the Red Army and SMERSH’s presence in Yugoslavia, and yet more when Soviet instructors were present. Under Soviet influence, OZNA established conditions for full-fledged Sovietization such as the one SMERSH achieved in Eastern European countries. Soviet authorities, lacking insight into Yugoslav society outside the new ruling elite, chose Russian émigrés as prime candidates for their informers’ network in Yugoslavia. Yugoslav UDBA uncovered Soviet intelligence activity. Soviet and Yugoslav intelligence officers alike exploited the unresolved citizenship status of Russian émigrés in Yugoslavia for counterintelligence gathering. The paper draws extensively from available UDBA’s reports and analyses from the late 1940s and 1950s.