Detained SBU Officer Roman Chervinsky Granted Bail After More Than a Year

Who is Chervinsky?

Colonel Roman Chervinsky was a counterintelligence officer in the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) who served as the head of Department 5, which was responsible for a series of clandestine operations mounted against individuals in the Russian armed forces.

In 2020, he helped organize an operation to detain members of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner PMC by luring them to Belarus. The operation failed, as a result of which it was alleged Russia received information that led to an attack on the Kanatove airfield, killing two and injuring 19 Ukrainian military personnel.

In the summer of 2022, Chervinsky is said to have led an operation to recruit Russian military pilots to steal their aircraft and fly to Ukraine in exchange for financial compensation and the promise of EU citizenship. The plot, which had not been approved, failed and was picked up by the media which caused embarrassment to the SBU and potentially jeopardized future operations.

On April 21, 2023, he was arrested and charged with exceeding his authority as a military official. He gave an interview to Censor.NET in which he gave more details of the operation and suggested that members of both the SBU and the military intelligence directorate (HUR) knew about it. Four days later he was remanded in custody and refused bail.

Chervinsky was accused in November of having been the “coordinator” of a September 2022 “sabotage operation” of the Russian Nord Stream pipeline in an article in the Washington Post. Ukraine and Chervinsky deny any involvement in the attack.

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Efforts to secure his release

On Monday, July 15, Chervinsky’s lawyer Viktor Vasylyuk, announced he would be released by the Kropyvnytsky Court of Appeal, with bail set at Hr. 9 million ($219,000).

Vasylyuk said on Facebook, “the fight is still going on.”

He added, “Finally, Roman will be able to hug his children, his mother, his wife, his sister. We thank everyone who supported and brought this intermediate victory closer.”

The Suspilne news site said he will remain in custody until the bail is posted. It quoted another lawyer Kostyantyn Globa who said that the trial had lasted over seven hours, during which 27 people's deputies and 51 individuals requested he should be granted bail.

Former Ukrainian president offers to help

Petro Poroshenko, President Zelensky’s predecessor, said he was willing to put up part, but not all, of the bail saying on Facebook, “It is unfair when the murderer Tsemakh is at large in Russia, and the Ukrainian hero, the intelligence officer Chervinsky, who captured him, is behind bars in Ukraine.”

Volodymyr Tsemakh commanded the air defense unit that was responsible for the 2014 shooting down of flight MH17 over the Donetsk region. He was captured as part of an SBU operation in June 2019 but was released in the following September as part of a prisoner exchange with Russia.

The search for other benefactors to finalize the bail sum goes on, Vasylyuk said.