loading…
The FSB, Russia's intelligence agency, arrested a Ukrainian spy agent, who wanted to buy secret missile parts. Photo/Reuters
MOSCOW – A court in southern Russia has jailed a Ukrainian man for eleven and a half years after convicting him of espionage for trying to obtain secret missile components for Ukraine.
The agencies cited Russia's FSB security service as saying that the man, identified as 57-year-old Sergei Krivitsky, was a Ukrainian military intelligence agent. They did not say whether he pleaded guilty or not.
The FSB was quoted as saying that it had tried to buy secret components for Russia's S-300 surface-to-air missile system in order to smuggle them into Ukraine.
The FSB also released a video revealing the actions of Ukrainian intelligence. Further in the video, the FSB officer asks the detainee to introduce himself and asks where he is from, to which he replies: “Krivitsky Sergey Viktorovich, I came from Ukraine.” Krivitsky admitted to the operatives that he met with his accomplices at the Rowing Channel to retrieve “hardware” – “devices on the S-300.”
The FSB said Krivitsky was a resident of Melitopol, a Ukrainian city taken over by Russian forces in early 2022 as part of what Moscow called a special military operation. Moscow says Melitopol is now part of Russia, something Kyiv and Western countries reject.
In the video released the FSB shows Krivitsky's Ukrainian passport with a residence permit in the Zaporozhye region, a klystron from a C-300 and 1000 US dollars in cash. Next, a court hearing is shown, where the verdict is read to the Ukrainian spy.
In 2023, Russia opened 31 espionage cases and 98 treason cases, the highest number since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
In addition, the Ukrainian side was also involved in an attempt to organize the supply of similar devices to Ukrainian intelligence in November 2019. At that time, Ukrainian Vasyl Vasilenko, who arrived in Moscow on behalf of Krivitsky to purchase klystrons, was detained. Vasilenko is currently serving his sentence in a penal colony. A Crimean man received a 16-year sentence for collecting classified information for Ukraine.
(ahm)