Ukrainian Intelligence Arrests Demobilized Soldier Suspected of Spying for Russia

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) has arrested a 22-year-old demobilized soldier in the Zaporizhzhia region suspected of spying for Russia.

The SBU’s Friday press release said the suspect came to the attention of Russian special services as his parents live in occupied territories and have been cooperating with the local occupation regime.

The suspect, after being transferred to a reserve unit and moving to Zaporizhzhia city in May, was reportedly recruited by an officer from Russia’s Armed Forces General Staff Main Directorate (GRU) based in Crimea. The SBU said it has established the GRU officer’s identity prior.

The unnamed suspect was reportedly tasked with providing “coordinates of combat units and logistics warehouses” of his former unit, and then locations of troop movement and deployment in an unspecified frontline city.

The SBU arrested the suspect when he was “conducting reconnaissance near a military facility” and seized a phone allegedly used to communicate with his Russian handler.

The suspect faces life imprisonment with confiscation of property if convicted.

The SBU said Russian intelligence has an interest in identifying the “geolocations of command posts, ammunition depots, and fortified areas of the Defense Forces in the Zaporizhzhia region,” an oblast wherein this arrest seems to indicate a wider initiative by Moscow to undermine Ukrainian security there.

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