Ukrainian Security Service uncovers Russian Special Services intelligence network in the Donbas
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) reports that its employees have uncovered an agent network in the Donbas that is organized by representatives of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.
According to the department's press office, law enforcement officers established that Russian Special Services recruited two residents of Lysychansk and Kostiantynivka through acquaintances located in the separatist-held territories of the Donbas.
They received assignments from Russian overseers hidden in Luhansk under the roof of the "law enforcement bodies" of the LPR (Luhansk People’s Republic), and created a network of informers on the territory of the Donbas which is under the control of the Ukrainian authorities.
Employees of the SBU counterintelligence service documented that the main task of the agents was to collect and transmit information about the redeployment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces near the line of contact in eastern Ukraine, the report said.
The Russian Special Services were also interested in the infrastructural details of the fortifications of the Armed Forces of Ukraine located deep within the position of the Ukrainian military. Agents passed on the information through mobile phones, using separate SIM cards.
Operatives of the SBU simultaneously detained two men in Lysychansk and Konstiantynivka. The department said that during the searches, telephones with evidence of contacts with Russian curators were seized from the plotters.
"Agents have declared their suspicion that a crime was committed under Part 1 of Art. 258-3 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, and a preventive measure in the form of detention was chosen. Employees of the SBU have identified three more residents of the Donbas who were part of the network of agents. A separate procedural decision will be taken against them," the press office said.
Russia continues to deny its involvement in numerous acts of aggression in the Ukrainian portion of the Donbas, recognizing only that there may be allegedly Moscow-controlled Russian "volunteers".