Ukrainian law enforcement officers have detained a Ukrainian woman at the Chonhar checkpoint in Kherson region, as she is accused of gathering signatures in Crimea for Vladimir Putin’s 2018 presidential campaign.
She was held on Monday “as part of a criminal inquiry into high treason,” Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko wrote on Facebook on Monday.
She is charged with having acted “in the interests of the Russian Federation and of the nongovernmental Russian public organization the Volunteers of Victory,” he said.
Under the Russian presidential election law, signature-gathering for a candidate is an official and mandatory procedure in the run-up to election, Lutsenko said.
By gathering signatures in Putin’s support in Crimea, the Ukrainian woman “assisted the Russian Federation and Volunteers of Victory with conducting subversive activities against Ukraine in detriment of its sovereignty, territorial integrity and immunity,” Lutsenko said.
Prosecutors are drafting an indictment, the inquiry is under way.
