Police Special Forces members secure an area in Kiev (Reuters - Archive)
On Tuesday, the Ukrainian authorities announced that they had arrested 5 former and current intelligence employees who they said were secretly working within a spy network for Russia.
Kiev said the suspects were caught passing information to Russia's Federal Security Service about Ukrainian military sites, their defensive fortifications, personal data and strategic energy installations.
Ukrainian intelligence explained, in a statement issued on Tuesday, that “the Ukrainian Security Service neutralized a strong agent network run by the military counterintelligence service of the Russian Federal Security Service and which was operating in Ukraine.”
The Public Prosecutor pointed out that the five employees are former employees of the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence and its foreign intelligence units, in addition to a current employee of the agency, and that they were arrested on suspicion of involvement in treason.
Intelligence information
“The suspects transferred intelligence information about the defense forces and energy facilities of strategic importance to representatives of the intelligence services of the aggressor state,” the Public Prosecutor added.
The Kiev Public Prosecutor indicated that the network also transmitted information about defensive barriers near the city of Odessa overlooking the Black Sea and information about the movements of Ukrainian forces and their vehicles.
Ukraine has previously arrested several individuals who it said were secret Russian spies or had passed strategic information to Russian agents since the war began in February 2022.
Source: French