A senior official in Ukraine’s anti-terrorist centre has been arrested on suspicion of spying for Russia, say security chiefs. Ukraine’s security service (the SBU) said the suspected Russian agent had recently been reactivated by Moscow to carry out espionage. The official was the chief of staff of the centre and had been working for Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), the SBU said. It did not name him.
"We used encrypted software to get into his gadgets. We were constantly 'living' with him... And we managed to qualitatively document the collection and transmission of information to the enemy," said SBU chief Vasyl Maliuk. The security service recorded at least 14 such episodes and detained the official for state treason, Mr Maliuk explained. The official had worked in the Ukrainian security service since 2014 and was recruited by the FSB in 2018 in Vienna, according to the SBU.
He had not carried out active espionage activities before Russian security officers reestablished contact with him in December, the SBU said, adding it was tracking this communication. Mr Maliuk said the SBU had sent Moscow misinformation during its operation in order to catch the suspected spy, but didn't provide details. In the course of the nearly three-year full-scale war with Russia, Ukrainian officials have reported numerous operations to uncover agents recruited by Moscow.
Ukraine has accused them of spying, supplying coordinates of military targets, setting fire to military vehicles and other malign activities. SBU said that Russia tasked its spy network, which the detained official was part of, with gathering data on Ukraine's awareness of Russia's frontline movement, as well as on critical infrastructure and the aftermath of Russian deep strikes into Ukraine. Information about military and political leadership and Ukraine's weaponry were matters of interest as well.
"The official worked for the enemy not only for ideological but also for financial reasons," Ukraine's SBU said. The SBU has recently also accused Russian spies of orchestrating explosions in military draft offices across Ukraine in order to undermine the mobilisation effort. Ukraine has launched a series of sabotage operations in Russia, with reports that an oil tanker suspected of being part of Vladimir Putin’s “shadow fleet” was blown up in a port in northern Russia with “limpet mines”.
Russia will also be seeking to be gleaning as much information as possible about the stance of Ukraine, and the West, on any peace deal. US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has said that Washington views the prospect of Putin giving up annexed Crimea as “unrealistic”. Putin is believed to have been seeking to capture as much of eastern Ukraine as possible, even while his troops suffer heavy losses, before any peace deal, with Donald Trump adamant one can be struck swiftly.
