Ukraine's Security Service neutralises FSB agent group with MP's aide as its member

The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) has neutralised the Russian FSB agent network that was adjusting fire at the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Donetsk and Kharkiv oblasts.

Source: SSU; Prosecutor’s Office in Donetsk Oblast; Ukrainska Pravda’s source in law enforcement agencies

Details: According to the SSU, the group consisted of eight local residents.

SBU counterintelligence officers gradually documented the criminal actions of Russian agents and detained four members of the Russian network.

Another four are in the territory of the aggressor country. Comprehensive measures are being taken to bring them to justice.

It is reported that one of them used the status of an assistant to a current MP of Ukraine and a journalist's certificate as a cover.

According to Ukrainska Pravda’s source, this citizen is Oleksandr Dobrodomov, who is an assistant consultant to Valerii Hnatenko, the MP from the banned Opposition Platform – For Life party and former mayor of Druzhkivka. In the event of the occupation of the oblast, Dobrodomov offered himself for the position of "mayoral adviser".

According to the investigation, the agent network was formed by two FSB officers prior to the full-scale invasion. It included an agent who had previously been recruited in Kharkiv by the Honorary Consul of the Russian Federation. Other members of the group were involved in covert cooperation with the aggressor remotely or during their trips to Russia. Each of them was assigned the alias and worked out a conspiratorial legend.

After 24 February 2022, the FSB "activated" its agents to conduct intelligence and sabotage activities against Ukraine.

The prosecutor's office said that supporters of the "Russian world" collected information about the locations of military equipment, checkpoints and firing positions of the Armed Forces, confirmed the data and sent photos and videos after the strikes.

In particular, text messages and screenshots on Google Maps contained coordinates of tanks, trenches, posts, roads, and the movement of armoured vehicles and long-range weapons in the cities of Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk and Kostiantynivka in Donetsk Oblast, as well as in the city of Kharkiv and the Bohodukhiv district.

The Russians’ "zone of special attention" included the routes of military equipment chains and the locations of railroad stations where Ukrainian weapons were unloaded.

They were paid in roubles for their work for the occupiers.

The SSU said that during searches at the suspects' residences, mobile phones used by them to communicate with the Russians were seized. The SSU also found Russian symbols and pro-Kremlin literature in their homes.

In addition, according to the coordinates revealed during the investigation, counterintelligence officers found their hiding place with weapons that the occupiers left behind while fleeing the counteroffensive of the Defence Forces in Kharkiv Oblast.

Based on the collected evidence, SSU investigators served the detainees with a notice of suspicion of state treason committed under martial law. The court remanded four suspects in custody while denying their release on bail.

The sanction of the article provides for punishment in the form of imprisonment for a term of 15 years or life imprisonment with confiscation of property.

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