Despite the agreement between Ukraine and Russia, Russian secret services have long lead subversive and intelligence activities on the territory of Ukraine. This statement was made by to the Channel 5 by the acting Deputy Head of Presidential Administration of Ukraine Andriy Senchenko.
“When we talk about Russian presence… We have 25 employees of Russian Central Intelligence in our custody alone. Moreover, there are people there who lived in Ukraine under false identities for 2 to 3 years, and against the agreement between Ukraine and Russian Federation, were conducting subversive and intelligence activities on the Ukrainian territory,” he said, responding to Russian State Duma MP Ilya Ponomarev that was present in the studio, who alone voted against the secession of Crimea and Sevastopol by Russia.
Senchenko believes that the main task of the Russian agents embedded in Ukraine and their local wards was to disrupt the presidential elections and undermine the Ukrainian state.
“For Putin, the number one task is to disrupt the stabilization process in Ukraine, to disrupt presidential elections, it is obvious… and the only tool for achieving this are those separatists who disrupt peace in Donbas first of all and in our country in whole; they are instrumentary for the destabilization of the political situation in the country for a long time ahead,” he explained.
Responding to criticism against the Ukrainian government, he stated: “We were criticized for the sluggish start of the anti-terrorist operation. But the beginning of this operation was tied to disentagling the protests in the region. And we managed to do this almost across the entire Donbas, in order to protect the innocent people who came to protest against living in poverty, total corruption, against injustice… We managed to pull them away from the protests, we, as the authorities, have reached out to these people, telling them that we are their partners in building a new Ukraine,” said Senchenko.
“Who is left there today? Those who came there for money of the ‘Family’ [Yanukovych’s clan], for the money of those who want to maintain total control over the Donbas region, over its resources, who are trying to grip tightly the right to exploit Donbas’s 10 million residents. And we will speak with them in another tone,” he added.
“And even then – we will try to dissuade those who are not tainted by crime, and don’t have blood on their hands… We say: “Leave, we are ready to grant amnesty to you,” said the acting deputy head of the Presidential Administration.
Source: ukrinform.ua. Translated by Crimea_SOS, edited by Alya Shandra
