Feb. 1, 2025, 6:17 p.m.
(Photo: SBU)
The Security Service of Ukraine has detained five men suspected of collaborating with the Russian Federation in Odesa, Kyiv, Dnipro, Poltava and Kharkiv regions.
According to the SBU press service, the detainees, under the guise of spreading neo-communist ideas, agitated Ukrainians to rebel against the government and lay down their arms to the Nazis.
Among other things, the defendants called on citizens of military age to evade mobilization, and on current military personnel to disobey orders from commanders and desert. The agitators also suggested that Ukrainian defenders unite in so-called soldiers' committees to collectively refuse to participate in hostilities at the front.
To spread the Kremlin's narratives, the criminals created pages of their association on various social networks, where more than 30,000 users subscribed to them. The defendants also massively posted propaganda leaflets on the streets of Ukrainian cities with a QR code of a hostile organization and calls to disrupt mobilization.
Every day, they visited at least 30 addresses where they placed "agitprops" on bulletin boards or simply on the walls of buildings. To print propaganda visuals, they set up clandestine printing houses right in their own homes.
All the detainees are local residents aged 20 to 32. Some of them are students, others are employees of enterprises or unemployed, who acted under the coordination of a representative from Russia, the so-called trade union curator from Russia. During the searches, the SBU found wholesale batches of hostile visuals, communist literature, computers and mobile phones with evidence of the crimes.
SBU investigators have served five detainees with suspicion notices under Part 1 of Article 114-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (obstruction of the lawful activities of the Armed Forces and other military formations during a special period, committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy). Three of the defendants are in custody. The court imposed round-the-clock house arrest with the wearing of an electronic device on the other two.
Кирило Бойко