Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said he is grateful to Ukrainian law enforcers for exposing a Russian special operation, preventing mass terrorist attacks and saving lives.
“I am grateful to officers of the Security Service and the Prosecutor General’s Office for saving lives of people by preventing mass terrorist attacks and exposing a Russian special operation against Ukraine. I also thank officers of the Armed Forces who did not succumb to provocations and informed law enforcement agencies on time about the criminal intentions of the aggressor and the fifth column,” the head of state wrote on his Facebook page on March 22.
Poroshenko stressed that the purpose of the Russian special operation was “to sow chaos and destroy the Ukrainian state.”
“All this is another reminder that a large-scale hybrid war is being waged against Ukraine, in which we will be able to stand out only through unity,” he said.
As reported, the head of the Officer Corps prisoner release center, Volodymyr Ruban, was detained at a Donbas checkpoint on March 8 while trying to smuggle an arsenal of weapons into the part of Ukraine not controlled by Kyiv. According to the text of a suspicion document, Ruban is suspected of having committed the criminal offenses of “plotting an act of terrorism,” “possession, storage, acquisition, manufacture, repair, transfer, or disposal of a firearm (except a smoothbore hunting rifle), ammunition, explosive substances or explosive devices without the permission required by the law.”
On March 9, the Shevchenskivsky District Court in Kyiv ordered Ruban’s arrest for two months.
The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) believes that Ruban’s illegal actions were coordinated from Russia.
According to SBU Chief Vasyl Hrytsak, investigators collected evidence indicating that “Ruban, acting on preliminary collusion with the leaders of the terrorist organizations of the Russia-backed separatists Zakharchenko and Timofeev, as well as others, planned and carried out specific actions aimed at plotting and committing a series of terrorist acts in the central part of Kyiv with the use of weapons and explosive devices.”
On March 15, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko submitted motions to the Verkhovna Rada on granting consent to the prosecution, detention and arrest of Ukrainian MP Nadiya Savchenko.
On March 22, the Verkhovna Rada supported the motions and greenlighted Savchenko’s prosecution, detention and arrest. Then representatives of law enforcement bodies in the building of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine informed Savchenko about suspicion, after which the MP, accompanied by law enforcers, went to the Office of the Security Service of Ukraine in Kyiv and Kyiv region.
The motions were filed in the framework of criminal proceedings under Part 1 of Article 109 (actions aimed at the forcible change or overthrow of the constitutional order or the seizure of state power); Part 1 of Article 14 (preparation for crime), Part 2 of Article 28 (commission of a crime by a group of persons, a group of persons by prior agreement, an organized group or a criminal organization), Part 1 of Article 109; Part 1 of Article 14, Part 2 of Article 28, Article 112 (encroachment on the life of a state or public figure), Part 1 of Article 14, Part 3 of Article 258 (terrorist act); Part 1 of Article 258-3 (creation of a terrorist group or terrorist organization); Part 2 of Article 28 and Part 1 of Article 263 (illegal handling of weapons, ammunition or explosives) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
