SBU detains man suspected of spying on military airfields in Mykolaiv.

A man who is suspected of passing on information to Russia about Ukrainian military airfields in Mykolaiv has been detained, Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) announced on Nov.

14. If convicted, the man faces up to 12 years in prison for disseminating information about the movement, transfer, or placement of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Investigators believe that at the start of the Russian full-scale invasion, the man left Ukraine.

While abroad, he started to "actively support the armed aggression of the Russian Federation, after which he was remotely recruited by the Russian special services," the SBU said. Upon his return to Ukraine in March 2023, he began to try to locate airfields that had combat aircraft in Mykolaiv. He recorded military sites and sent the information to contacts in the Russian security service.

One of his contacts was pro-Russian blogger Sergei Lebedev, who lives in Russian-occupied Donetsk and uses the pseudonym Lokhmaty. Lebedev was also the contact for 13 people within a spy network in Mykolaiv that the SBU uncovered earlier this year.   Investigators believe he used a Telegram channel to recruit the individuals and receive intelligence from them.

Media: SBU investigating 8,000 cases of suspected treason

The SBU told New Voice that it had initiated over 7,000 investigations into criminal proceedings related to Article 111-1 of the Criminal Code and nearly 1,000 under Article 111-2.

News Editor

Elsa Court is a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. She was previously an intern at the Kyiv Post and has a Master's in Conflict Studies and Human Rights from Utrecht University. Before joining the Kyiv Independent, she worked at the Netherlands Red Cross programme to arrange hosts for Ukrainian refugees and as a freelance writer and editor.

Elsa is originally from the UK and is based in the Netherlands.