Russia's GRU military intelligence service was preparing targeted terror attacks against engineers and other officials working at Ukrainian defense-industry factories, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) reports. The announcement came after detaining a GRU agent in Zakarpattia Oblast who was building intelligence files on the personnel involved.
The detained agent, a local factory employee, had been compiling addresses of Ukrainian defense enterprises in the country's western regions, intelligence on what each facility produced and in what volumes, and a "card index" of individual workers with personal data and work schedules attached.
The SBU said the GRU intended to use the material both to direct precision air strikes and to plan assassinations of specific defense engineers.
"Card index" of defense workers
"According to available data, Russia's GRU planned to use the agent's intelligence to prepare air attacks on Ukrainian defense-industrial-complex plants and to commit terror attacks against company officials, particularly engineer-developers," the SBU said.
The agent's handlers reportedly promised to warn him via coded words on a messenger before any Russian strike at his coordinates, so he could leave the impact zone.
Picking up best practices
The agent extracted intelligence under the cover of "exchanging best practices" with former colleagues now working at various Ukrainian defense enterprises.
He showed particular professional interest in newer developments within the Ukrainian defense-industrial complex and the specialists working on them, the SBU investigation found.
Kaliningrad relay
The agent transmitted the collected information to Russian military intelligence through his father, who lives in Kaliningrad and cooperates with Russian special services, the SBU said.
The case follows a similar pattern documented in June 2025, when Ukrainian counterintelligence detained a 44-year-old Kyiv resident working with Russia's "Senezh" special-purpose center of the GRU to direct missile and drone attacks against Kyiv Oblast.
