Ukraine security officers pre-empt Russian sabotage attempt at arsenal

An attempt by Russian intelligence agents to launch a
terrorist attack on a military arsenal on Ukrainian territory was pre-empted by
military counter-intelligence officers with the Security Service of Ukraine
(SBU), the agency reported on May 6. Early this year, the Russian agents
recruited a Ukrainian Armed Forces worker at the arsenal that stores modern
rockets and ammunition. To pressure him to fulfill their orders, they
threatened to harm his relatives that reside in the occupied territory of
Donbas, the SBU said, also offering Russian citizenship and a pension. He was
ordered to collect and pass on information about the arsenal, particularly its
security and what was stored there, with the goal of organizing sabotage. The
agents provided him with electronic equipment to transfer information securely
and coordinated their activity from Russia through the Internet.

Zenon Zawada: In just the
last two years, fires have erupted at three major arsenals or ammunitions
depots on Ukrainian territory, resulting in damage of at least tens of millions
of dollars. So this success by the SBU in preventing yet another embarrassing
incident speaks to the success of the Poroshenko administration in improving
the security service, which has pre-empted numerous other sabotage attempts by
the Russians in recent years. We expect Zelenskiy will be able to preserve
Poroshenko’s success in the national security sphere, if not improving it
further.

This incident offers further justification for the
recent call by Oleksandr Turchynov, the secretary of the National Security and
Defense Council, for the global community to recognize Russia’s Federal
Security Service and Main Directorate of the General Staff of Russia’s Armed
Forces as terrorist organizations, and Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.
This incident is the latest evidence that Russia is actively working to
collapse Ukrainian statehood gradually, or to bring it to capitulation.