The Security Service of Ukraine has urged Ukrainian nationals, especially those who have defended the country within the Anti-Terrorist Operation in Donbas, to refrain from traveling to Russia, as the FSB operatives "hunt down" Ukrainians on Russian territory.
The Russian special services resorted to "another anti-Ukrainian provocation" by illegally detaining in Moscow a citizen of Ukraine, a participant in the Anti-Terrorist Operation Oleh Nehoda, who arrived in Russia to visit his relatives, the SBU press service says.
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The SBU recalled that back in August 2017, the Ukrainian operatives exposed another "cynical provocation" by Russian special services aimed at staging a terrorist plot by three Ukrainian ATO participants against critical infrastructure facilities in Moscow, Kurchatov, Kursk, and Togliatti. That episode sparked a harsh public response.
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"SBU alerts regarding the dangers for Ukrainian citizens’ stay in Russia are confirmed by numerous documented facts of Russian provocations in the framework of their hybrid war. Russian special services are trying to draw Ukrainian citizens into illegal activities, artificially creating compromising situations [the notorious “kompromat” widely used to blackmail or charge targets], and also using kinship ties to lure our compatriots, primarily ATO participants, to their territory to set up such provocations," Hrytsak said.
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According to media reports, Nehoda, who in late 2017 traveled to Russia’s Saratov to visit his sister, was detained in Moscow.