MOSCOW. May 2 (Interfax) - The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has reported the detection of Ukrainian military intelligence agents in Crimea plotting sabotage against the local administration and transport infrastructure.
"The Russian FSB has put to a stop the activity of agents of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Department planning to commit a series of high-profile terror attacks in the Republic of Crimea," the FSB said.
According to the FSB, "Republic head Sergei Aksyonov, Parliament Speaker Vladimir Konstantinov, Yalta Mayor Yanina Pavlenko, and elements of the peninsular transport infrastructure were chosen as targets."
"It has been found that the direct organizer of the terror attacks and coordinator of preparations for murdering senior officials was a close associate of head of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Department Kirill Budanov - active military intelligence reserves officer Roman Mashovets, born in 1976, who served as a deputy chief of staff of the Office of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky since 2020," the FSB said.
Operative measures resulted in the detention of "members of an undercover group of agents of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Department" acting in Crimea including citizens of Russia and Ukraine Viktor Podvalny, Alexander Litvinenko and Sergei Krivoshein, born in 1988, Konstantin Yevmenenko, Igor Zorin, and Sergei Voinarovsky, the FSB said. They were charged with plotting terror attacks, conducting technical surveillance on the officials, and purchasing firearms.
Petranov, a citizen of Ukraine and Bulgaria, "involved in the delivery of weapons to Russia," has also been detained.
"Searches of the detainees' residences yielded five ready-to-use improvised explosive devices in the form of shaped and concentrated charges, plastic explosives made in the UK with a total mass of about six kilograms, military-grade electric detonators, radio-controlled detonators, surveillance trackers, and devices for encrypted communication with curators from the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Department," the FSB said.
The FSB has released footage of interviews, in which the detainees explain how their cooperation with the Ukrainian security service began.
Viktor Podvalny, a citizen of Ukraine and Russia, said in the video that he was recruited in Poland in 2022 and given the Socrates call sign. "I was tasked with following Pavlenko, the mayor of Yalta, as well as Konstantinov and Aksyonov, the head of the Republic of Crimea [...] to gather any information for being transferred and used in their future liquidation," he said.
There is also a video of an interview with an unnamed woman who was used to transport explosives. She said she was expecting to receive 15 wedding dresses from Bulgaria for her acquaintance and also received two electric stoves, which she was asked to ship to Yalta. According to the FSB, the stoves were used to bring explosives to the peninsula.