Security operatives of the SBU exposed a lieutenant colonel of the National Guard of Ukraine, who appeared to be a holder of a Russian passport, who had been collecting classified defense-related data on personal flash drives.
The SBU found that in 2014 the man, supporting the ideology of the so-called "Russian world", left for the temporarily annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea "in search of a better life," the SBU press service reports.
There he obtained Russian citizenship, a Russian driver’s license and became registered with military reserve, also having been entitled to a Russian military pension on preferential terms, since in 1995 he participated in military operations in Chechnya as part of the armed forces of the aggressor state, according to the statement.
The SBU operatives revealed that back in 2016, the lieutenant colonel enlisted in the Main Directorate of the National Guard, with the assistance of the former NGU leadership.
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"He gained access to state secrets and requested that the Command deploy him to the Anti-Terrorist Operation zone," the SBU says.
"While serving at the ATO Headquarters, the lieutenant colonel, violating the established requirements of handling classified data, accumulated on his personal flash drives a large amount of secret information regarding the performance of combat tasks by units of the NGU that were part of the Anti-Terrorist Forces," the SBU noted.
To prevent the leaks and disclosure of classified data, the SBU's military counterintelligence operatives seized the flash drives. The lieutenant colonel has been suspended from service.
The probe materials have been transferred to the pre-trial investigation authorities.
Earlier, counterintelligence operatives, together with the Main Investigation Directorate of the Security Service of Ukraine, announced the detention of a Russian military intelligence agent, an employee of one of the enterprises that is part of the Ukroboronprom State Concern.
