They were spying in the south of Ukraine: SBU detains couple of Russian agents and accomplice

Law enforcers neutralized an agent group of Russian military intelligence operating on the right bank of Kherson region. The enemy cell consisted of a married couple and their accomplice who were spying on the Defense Forces. UNN reports this with reference to the SBU. 

According to the investigation, the couple was collecting coordinates of the places of the largest concentration of personnel and military equipment of Ukrainian defenders.

To do this, they regularly went around the area and covertly recorded the geolocation of the Defense Forces. If the agents found a military facility, they tried to determine the number of soldiers and types of weapons present there.

Their accomplice used the same algorithm.

After the reconnaissance raids, the agents prepared “reports” for their resident (head) of the Russian agent group.

It turned out to be a relative of the couple from the Kherson region, who at the beginning of the full-scale war cooperated with the occupiers, and after the liberation of part of the region fled to Krasnodar in Russia.

Reportedly, while in the territory of the Russian Federation, the resident acted under the direction of a staff member of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (better known as Gru).

On the instructions of a Russian intelligence officer, he remotely recruited his brother and his wife from Kherson region, as well as a local resident.

Subsequently, a married couple of agents arrived to try to “lay low” and moved to Odesa under the guise of migrants from Kherson region.

However, SBU cyber specialists documented the criminal actions of the agent group and detained all three members in advance. The SBU seized their cell phones with evidence of communication with the Russian game.

SBU investigators served the detainees suspicion notices under two articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine:

•  part 2 of Article 111 (high treason committed under martial law);

• ч. 3 of Art. 114-2 (unauthorized dissemination of information on the movement or deployment of the Armed Forces or other military formations formed in accordance with the laws of Ukraine committed under martial law).

They face 12 years in prison to life imprisonment with confiscation of property.