Ukraine’s safety service mentioned Monday it had detained a girl from the nation’s Mykolaiv area, accusing her of attempting to assemble intelligence for Russia on the actions of President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The accused informant had “tried to establish the time and range of locations” concerned in a go to Mr. Zelensky could be making to the Mykolaiv area of southern Ukraine, the company mentioned in an announcement.
The Security Service of Ukraine, often called the S.B.U., additionally accused the girl of working to find Ukrainian ammunition retailer factors and digital warfare methods within the space, saying it had intelligence that confirmed Russia sought the knowledge with a purpose to plan a “massive airstrike” in Mykolaiv. It didn’t explicitly specify whether or not Mr. Zelensky was the meant goal.
“Officers detained the woman red-handed in her attempt to pass intelligence to the Russians,” the assertion added, with out offering additional particulars.
The accusations couldn’t be independently verified, and there was no quick remark from the Kremlin or Russia’s Ministry of Defense.
The company didn’t specify the dates of Mr. Zelensky’s go to however mentioned the company had detected the girl’s efforts and employed extra safety measures forward of time.
The Ukrainian chief has made at the least two journeys to the Mykolaiv area up to now two months. He traveled to the realm in June to evaluate the harm from flooding after the breach of the Kakhovka Dam and once more final month, when he visited hospitals and met with docs within the metropolis of Ochakiv.
In its assertion on Monday, the company didn’t identify the girl or say when she had been detained, saying solely that she was a resident of the small, historic port metropolis of Ochakiv who had beforehand labored as a saleswoman in a Ukrainian army retailer. She has been positioned in custody and will withstand 12 years in jail, it added.
Even earlier than Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine 18 months in the past, the United States and Britain had warned about Moscow’s want to push Mr. Zelensky from energy.
When Russian forces invaded, in late February 2022, Mr. Zelensky was believed to be the “No. 1 target” of their assault on the capital, Kyiv. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Mr. Zelensky, mentioned that March that there had been “more than a dozen attempts” to kill the Ukrainian president.
Mr. Zelensky has been requested many occasions about the way it feels to be the goal of so many assassination makes an attempt.
“It becomes repetitive — you remember that film, ‘Groundhog Day’?” he joked in an interview with Axios in May 2022, including: “I wake up in the morning and it’s still the same.”
While Mr. Zelensky didn’t remark instantly Monday on the news from the Security Service, he mentioned in an announcement that in conferences he had been briefed by the company’s chief about “the struggle against traitors” in Ukraine.
The nation has been waging a struggle in opposition to spies and collaborators who give assist to Russian forces whereas its troopers concurrently confront them on the battlefield. Since the invasion, fears have continued that Russian sympathizers would share the places of delicate Ukrainian targets. Mr. Zelensky has taken an aggressive strategy on going after potential collaborators.
Last July, he dismissed two senior legislation enforcement officers, saying that they had not been practically aggressive sufficient in removing traitors.
Marc Santora contributed reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine, and Nataliia Novosolova from Vinnytsia, Ukraine.
Source: www.nytimes.com