You're reading: SBU nabs Russian, two Ukrainians suspected of working for Russian intelligence bodies

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) said it detained on April 23 a Russian citizen believed to be responsible for ensuring encrypted communication for the Russian special forces coordination center in eastern Ukraine allegedly headed by Russian military intelligence officer Igor Strelkov. 

Officials
in Moscow have strenuously and repeatedly denied any involvement in the unrest
in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin has, however, admitted on live
television last week that Russian soldiers took part in the annexation of Crimea. 

Earlier
in the week, SBU chief Valentyn Nalyvaichenko told journalists that there are
at least 100 Russian military intelligence officers operating in Ukraine. The
SBU had earlier arrest three of them and some 40 of their trained and recruited
Russian and Ukrainian agents. 

The
arrested Russian citizen was only identified as citizen “C” and is codenamed Lastivka. He entered the country using a
fake Ukrainian passport. 

On
the same day, the SBU captured a Ukrainian citizen identified only as “P” who
it says organized the seizure of Ukrainian government buildings in the Donetsk
Oblast cities of Artemivsk and Slovyansk. According to the SBU, he allegedly
was in charge of supplying arms and other weapons to Kremlin-backed militants,
and in recruiting people to carry out “extremist actions and resisting law
enforcement.” 

The
Ukrainian allegedly spent time in Crimea from April 7 to April 20 where he received instruction from Russian special forces and diplomats from the Russian
consulate in Simferopol. They specifically were to “destabilize” the situation
in the southeastern regions “and create conditions for strengthening the
(Russian) separatist movement.” 

Computer
and communication equipment were found on the Russian and Ukrainian, stated the
SBU. 

Separately,
on April 23, the SBU captured a high-ranking Crimean kozak member trying to
enter Ukraine from Crimea. Identified only as citizen “Yu,” he allegedly
coordinated the takeover of government buildings in Luhansk and Donetsk
oblasts, including police and SBU stations. In February-March, he allegedly
took orders from Russian military intelligence officers to take part in
separatist activities on the peninsula and joined Russian special forces during
seizures of Ukrainian military installations and government buildings. 

The suspect also, according to
the SBU, worked on behalf of Russia’s Federal Security Service – it’s
KGB-successor agency – by organizing and sending kozaks from Crimea to take
part in “extremist and separatist” events in Ukraine’s eastern regions. He allegedly
spread anti-Ukrainian propaganda in the southern regions of Zaporizhya,
Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk and Odesa. 

Kyiv
Post editor Mark Rachkevych can be reached at [email protected].