Ukraine claimed on Tuesday, January 25 to have dismantled a group acting on orders from Moscow and which was preparing armed attacks to “
destabilize
” regions of the country.
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"
The gang's organizers were preparing a series of armed attacks against infrastructure
," the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) said in a statement, saying the group "
was coordinated
" by "
Russian special services
."
The two organizers, including a Russian, were arrested, said the SBU, whose agents seized “
an explosive device, small arms and ammunition
”.
Former commandos
They acted in Kharkiv, a large city located near the Russian border in the east of the country, and in Zhytomyr, in central Ukraine, less than 150 kilometers from Kiev, the capital.
The two men were former commandos who participated in the fighting, a source within the police told AFP.
Under the pretext of looking for security guards, they "
started to recruit
" personnel "
mainly
" from Russians who had committed violent crimes, according to this source.
Ukraine and the West accuse Russia of having massed tens of thousands of troops on the Ukrainian border in preparation for a possible invasion as well as of seeking to destabilize the situation inside that country.
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