Russian agent arrested in planning insurgency

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) announced on
Dec. 27 that it uncovered a network of Russian military intelligence agents operating
in the Mykolayiv region and liquidated its illegal activity. The leader of this
network, a captain in Ukraine’s Armed Forces reserves, was arrested on Dec. 20
on charges of treason and was found to have Russian citizenship, violating
Ukraine’s prohibition on dual citizenship. He traveled numerous times to
occupied Crimea for meetings.

“The former senior naval officer and his associates
were given the task by Russian intelligence services to collect and distribute
classified information on the functioning of military units on the territory of
the Ochakiv garrison of the Mykolayiv oblast, and also recruiting them to
conduct Operation United Forces in eastern Ukraine,” Volodymyr Nastiuk, a
spokesman for Ukraine’s counterintelligence, told a press briefing. “The last
task from his Russian curators was to create and lead an insurgency on the
territory of the Okachiv district to conduct various measures to destabilize
the situation in the regions.”

The SBU simultaneously conducted operations to uncover
Russian military intelligence agents in the Kharkiv and Odesa regions, Nastiuk
said. Informants are located throughout the southeastern regions of Ukraine, as
well as the Kyiv region, he said. The general directorate of the Russian Armed
Forces General Staff “remains in the avant-garde of the Kremlin’s aggressive
politics towards Ukraine,” he said, having reformatted its work towards
“conducting deeply conspiratorial and long-term operations.” Their goal is to undermine
Ukraine’s defense capabilities and all essential spheres of activity, he said.
“Blatant sabotage and terrorist methods are being used – kidnappings, bombings,
political killings and others.”

Zenon Zawada: We expect
the activity of Russian intelligence agents in Ukraine (and their
Russian-oriented Ukrainian co-conspirators) will be particularly intense
throughout 2019, when elections and the potential for vote fraud will create
opportunities for severe destabilization and civil unrest. This report makes it
clear that the Russians will not limit their strategy to elections to regain
control of the Ukrainian territory. They are acting to support military
insurgencies to break apart the Ukrainian state. It will be a significant
victory for Ukrainians if they conclude 2019 with their territory intact, and
their Euro-Atlantic integration course uninterrupted.