17 December 2024
(Photo: SBU)
The SBU Military Counterintelligence neutralized a large-scale agent network of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (known as the game).
According to the SBU, the offenders were spying on the Defense Forces in five regions of Ukraine at once.
As a result of the special operation, 12 Russian agents and their informants were exposed. Some of them were deserters who had left the Armed Forces units without permission and were recruited by the Russian secret service while hiding from justice.
The members of the enemy cell acted separately from each other and were focused on the resident (leader) of the agent group, who was located in the Dnipro region. For conspiracy, he used forged cover documents, such as a fake ID of a volunteer and anti-corruption activist.
He involved accomplices from Zaporizhzhia, as well as Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Odesa regions in cooperation with the aggressor. In these regions, the defendants reconnoitered the firing positions of Ukrainian air defense and tried to identify the locations of secret military airfields where, according to the racists, F-16s could be based.
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A separate task of the enemy agents was to establish the addresses of companies involved in the production of electronic warfare equipment against Russian drones. To obtain intelligence, the perpetrators blindly used their acquaintances, including Ukrainian military personnel stationed in the frontline regions of Ukraine.
After receiving preliminary information, the agents went to the field to conduct additional reconnaissance near potential targets. At first, the members of the agent group reported to the resident, and then he passed the information to his Russian supervisor.
The SBU military counterintelligence exposed the entire enemy cell in advance, detained its organizer and four key accomplices. During the searches, SBU officers seized mobile phones, flash drives, military documents and forged IDs.
SBU investigators served the detainees a notice of suspicion (in accordance with the crimes committed) under two articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine:
Comprehensive measures are underway to bring to justice other members of the Russian agent network. The offenders face from 8 years in prison to life imprisonment with confiscation of property.
Кирило Бойко