According to Ukrainian intelligence, a “strong agent network” consisting of spies recruited by the Russian military counterintelligence service must have been eliminated.

The traitorous servants were arrested in a larger, coordinated special operation carried out in several Ukrainian cities, he wrote Ukrainian Pravda.

Read all about the war in Ukraine

According to the investigation, at least one foreign intelligence officer was recruited by Russia's FSB security service before Putin ordered a full-scale war in Ukraine.

A diagram of how and where foreign weapons were transferred

Here one of the arrested double agents is led away. Photo: Security Service of Ukraine

The previously unknown network of agents was tasked with collecting data and transmitting intelligence about the Ukrainian Defense Forces, and about strategically important energy facilities in Ukraine, he wrote. Moscow Times.

This information may have formed the basis for the terrorist bombing of civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, which led to enormous suffering and destruction.

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They are also said to have obtained information about how and where foreign weapons were transferred to Ukraine. This is highly sensitive information, and it gave the Russians insight into possible targets for the bombs to sabotage Western arms aid.

He was recruited using death threats and rewards

They are also said to have passed on classified information to the FSB about the operation and safety systems at the Rivne and Khmelnitsky nuclear power plants.

Agents are said to have been recruited using, among other things, death threats directed at family members. According to reports by the Security Service of Ukraine, they were supposed to receive a reward for every task they solved cable.

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The five spies are said to have had the same contact, an FSB officer who remained in Crimea.

video: Here, Ukraine eliminates an important Russian target

How double agents worked: Avoid the phone

The agents worked as spies within the Ukrainian intelligence service and were on their payroll. In this way, they gained access to sensitive information, and at the same time delivered this information to their Russian agent.

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In this way, the double agents are said to have undermined Ukraine's security and exposed Ukrainian military and civilian personnel to great danger.

Unfaithful servants are said to have worked in such a way that it was difficult to detect espionage. Instead of using the phone, the agents are said to have sent secret data to the Russian intelligence service manually. This is said to have occurred through the use of unofficial men who traveled abroad and informed other KGB security agents.

Accused of high treason

The Ukrainian Security Service published several photos of arrests in several Ukrainian cities. Photo: Security Service of Ukraine

Particularly sensitive information is said to have been transferred via so-called flash drives with the help of smugglers, but this is also a method that can be vulnerable to hacking and cyber attacks.

The five detainees, all part of the secret double agent network, include former Ukrainian intelligence officials and employees of the Regional Security Service's office in Kiev.

They will now all be charged with high treason in an upcoming trial. The photos in the article were published by the Security Service of Ukraine and show the arrests.