SBU detains Russian informant near Kharkiv
Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) detained Russian informant recruited through a "dating chat" therefore preventing new Russian services' attempts to obtain strategically important information about Kharkiv defense, the agency reported on Telegram on June 19.
Russia was preparing new missile and drone strikes, and the breakthrough of reconnaissance and sabotage groups to the city's northern outskirts , according to the available data.
The Russian services used their informant and supporter, who lives in Kharkiv's suburbs, to collect some intelligence data.
The Russians recruited the man through the popular Telegram dating chat.
Russian liaison officer, pretending to be an ordinary Russian citizen, offered a close relationship to a Kharkiv Oblast resident. After his positive response to the offer, the woman gradually involved him in intelligence and subversive activities.
Following the instructions given to him, the man went around Kharkiv's northern territories, where he secretly recorded the places where the Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel gathered.
SBU employees detained the informant while he was filming a special transport of Ukrainian soldiers.
His phone was seized immediately, the suspect used it to communicate with his Russian acquaintance and to take photos of military objects.
The SBU investigators detained him for dissemination of information about the movement, movement or location of the Armed Forces of Ukraine or other Ukrainian armed forces, committed under martial law (Part 2 of Article 114−2 of the Ukraine's Criminal Code).
The suspect is currently in custody. He faces up to 8 years in prison.
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