Kyiv said Thursday it had thwarted a Russian air strike on Ukrainian naval drone bases by arresting a suspected Russian informant.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), in its Thursday press release, said a “serviceman of the Ukrainian Navy’s special-purpose unmanned aerial vehicle brigade” had been arrested for the plot. The suspect was reportedly hired by Russian intelligence through an acquaintance.
The SBU said the counterintelligence operation involved some of Ukraine’s most senior military command, including Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky.
“Military counterintelligence of the Security Service, with the assistance of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Commander of the Naval Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, thwarted a Russian air strike on Ukrainian units operating naval drones,” it wrote.
The suspect was allegedly tasked with collecting and relaying the coordinates and movements of Ukraine’s Sea Baby and Magura drones, according to the SBU, but the agency said he had been arrested before the intelligence could be leaked.
“The SBU employees worked proactively: They exposed the informant in advance, documented his crimes, and detained him while he was preparing coordinates for a Russian missile attack,” the agency said, adding that measures were taken “to secure Defense Forces locations in the zone of enemy reconnaissance activity.”
Upon the suspect’s arrest, a smartphone used for communications with his acquaintance was seized. The acquaintance was also said to have relayed classified information of military personnel to Russian intelligence.
The SBU did not specify which branch of the Russian intelligence was responsible for the plot.
The suspect has been formally notified of suspicion – a step before official charges in Ukraine – for leaking intelligence during martial law.
Although the SBU press release called the suspect a “mole,” implying he was a career-long plant, it did not detail how long he had worked with the Russians; if he had been recruited more recently, he would be more accurately characterized as a double-agent.
Ukraine’s naval drones have been a major headache for Moscow, especially the Black Sea Fleet.
Despite Ukraine’s small navy, its drones have repeatedly damaged or disrupted Russian ships – including landing ships, patrol boats, and supply vessels – forcing Moscow to move much of its Black Sea Fleet from occupied Crimea to Novorossiysk on the Russian mainland out of fear of further attacks.
Starting in late 2025, Ukraine’s naval drones also began targeting oil tankers evading sanctions on Russian oil in a bid to curtail Moscow’s oil revenue. In early January, a drone attack damaged an oil tanker linked to Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” in the Black Sea off the coast of Turkey.