The counterintelligence unit of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) exposed an FSB agent network that was helping coordinate Russian air attacks against Ukraine’s Defense Forces in the Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk and Kirovohrad regions.
As a result of a multi-stage special operation, SSU officers simultaneously detained four suspected Russian informants in eastern and central Ukraine.
According to the investigation, the suspects operated separately from one another but shared the same Russian handler.
The Russia's priority targets included logistics warehouses storing weapons and ammunition belonging to the Defense Forces, as well as Ukrainian air defense positions.
The agents also collected information on locations with the highest concentrations of Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel and military equipment.
Investigators established that the suspects came to the attention of the Russian security service after posting anti-Ukrainian comments in Telegram channel chats.
One member of the network was a former employee of a machine-building plant in Kramatorsk who gathered information for Russia on the locations of operational airfields and fortifications in the region.
Two other agents allegedly provided the Russians with coordinates of Ukrainian military facilities in the Dnipropetrovsk region. They included an employee of a municipal utility company from Kamianske and a deserter from Pavlohrad.
In the Kirovohrad region, the SSU also detained an unemployed resident of Znamianka who, acting on FSB instructions, walked around the city recording the geolocations of sites he believed were being used by Ukraine’s Defense Forces.
To conceal their activities, the suspects transmitted intelligence to a Russian security service officer through an anonymous messenger chat and deleted their correspondence after each communication session.
The SSU said its officers detected the network’s activities in advance, documented the alleged crimes and detained all four suspects.
During searches, investigators seized mobile phones containing evidence of cooperation with the FSB.
The suspects are being held in custody. If convicted, they face life imprisonment with confiscation of property.
