Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) says it detained an alleged FSB agent who tried to get a job at a Territorial Recruitment Center in the Kharkiv region to gather information on Ukrainian service members and pass it to Russia’s security services.
Ukrainian counterintelligence thwarted the latest attempt by Russian operatives to infiltrate defense structures. The suspect, posing as a psychologist, planned to spy on Ukrainian troops, the SBU press service said.
According to investigators, the woman was supposed to relay to the enemy personal data of Ukrainian soldiers and information on the deployment of the Defense Forces along the eastern front.
The alleged accomplice traveled from Cherkasy to the Kharkiv region, rented an apartment and signed up for an interview for a psychologist position at a district Territorial Recruitment Center. Before that, she drove her own car through front-line areas, documenting concentrations of Ukrainian personnel and equipment.
SBU officers recorded her intelligence-gathering activity and detained her before she could visit the recruitment office.
The investigation found that after being recruited remotely, her first task was to help adjust Russian strikes on energy facilities in the Cherkasy region. To do that, she inspected impact sites, documented the aftermath and tried to identify Ukrainian air defense positions.
She later went to Kramatorsk to track backup command posts of Ukrainian defenders, after which her Russian handlers sent her to the Kharkiv region.
During a search, officers found a smartphone containing evidence of contacts with the FSB and small-arms ammunition. She has been notified of suspicion under Part 2 of Article 111 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code (state treason under martial law). She is being held without bail and faces life imprisonment with confiscation of property.
