The counterintelligence service of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has uncovered and prevented the realization of a scenario planned by Russian security services to destabilize the situation in Ukraine by means of terrorist acts against senior government officials, the sabotage of critical elements of infrastructure, and the organization of mass riots with the participation of pro-Russian citizens.
These plans were described by SBU press spokeswoman Olena Hitlianska at a press briefing on Monday, October 20, reports UNIAN.
According to Hitlianska, an underground subversive terrorist organization with a clear structure, which included political, legal, police and operational units, was created to carry out the scenario planned by the Russian security services under the guise of a social-political organization called “Civic Initiative”
The leader of this group was a Russian citizen recruited by Russian secret services — Serhiy Rastrihin, born in 1992 in Kharkiv, who used the alias “Viktor-Student-Architect,” she said.
Also involved in the leadership was a Ukrainian citizen recruited by the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation — Oleksandr Zinchenko, founder of the organization “Kyivites for a clean city” and a “commander” in the anti-Maidan protest camps earlier this year.
According to Hitlianska, the criminal plans of the group included the seizure of state and local government administrative buildings and sabotage and terrorist attacks against the communications, transportation, and public utility enterprises of the capital.
To this end, the security services of the Russian Federation equipped a weapons cache with MANPADS, anti-tank rocket launchers, rocket flamethrowers and grenades. Plans also included the distribution and posting of flyers in the name of a so-called “Kyiv People’s Republic,” starting on October 24 until the day of elections to the Verkhovna Rada, she said.
The terrorists also planned to blow up a plane at the Zhuliany airport early on October 26, to shell the Central Election Commission building during the night of October 25-26, and to fire on the Cabinet building during the same period, she said, adding that the group received a total sum of US $64,200 for its activities.
Additionally, the terrorist group was supposed to organize a protest against the actions of the Ukrainian government as well as mass riots designed to destabilize the situation in Ukraine. For this purpose, active efforts among the military and agitation among trade unions and professional organizations had been planned, she said.
Hitlianska also pointed out that Russian participation in the provocations and clashes with police near the Verkhovna Rada building has been confirmed. Similarly, the man who, along with a group of young men, was responsible for instigating the clashes has been identified. He turns out to be a Russian native, born in 1962 and registered in Luhansk, who was carrying documentation as a general of the “Don Cossack Army.”
Photo: Kuzma Dzhun
