A Ukrainian diplomat accused of receiving sensitive information from a Russian citizen in the midst of a military and diplomatic crisis between the two countries was arrested, Russian security agency FSB reported Saturday.
“A Ukrainian diplomat, a consul from the Consulate General of Ukraine in St. Petersburg, Alexander Sosonyuk, was detained by the FSB of Russia,” the security agency said in a statement, specifying that the arrest took place on Friday.
Russian internal intelligence said Sosonyuk was discovered “red-handed” during a meeting with a Russian citizen when he wanted to receive “classified” information.
“Such activity is incompatible with its diplomatic status and is clearly hostile in nature to the Russian Federation,” said the FSB.
“In accordance with international law, measures will be taken against the foreign diplomat,” he added.
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced in a statement that it had called on the Ukrainian Chargé d’Affaires in Russia, Vasili Pokotilo, on Saturday to protest against Sosonyuk’s “illegal activities”, “which are incompatible with consular officer status.”
Russia announced that the diplomat’s presence on Russian territory was “no longer welcome” and “advised him to leave the borders within 72 hours.”
– Provocation –
Ukraine, for its part, confirmed that the diplomat was detained for several hours before he was released and then went to the Ukrainian consulate.
Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko said in a statement to AFP that the arrest is “another provocation amidst Russia’s destabilizing activities.”
He expresses a “strong protest against the illegal detention” of Sosonyuk and confirms that he “completely sets aside” the veracity of the charges against his countryman.
He added that Ukraine will expel a Russian diplomat in retaliation within 72 hours.
Since 2014, many Ukrainians in Russia and Russians in Ukraine have been on espionage cases, but the arrest of a diplomat is rare.
Russia and Ukraine have been at war since pro-Westerners took power in Kiev in 2014, followed by Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and a war between Kiev forces and pro-Russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine, killing more than 13,000 have fallen.
– Growing tensions between Russia and the West –
Since the beginning of the year, this conflict with the separatists has seen another outbreak, killing dozens and Kiev accuses Russia of wanting to “destroy” it.
Russia, for its part, has assured that it “threatens no one” while denouncing Ukrainian “provocations”.
Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski, who was received in Paris on Friday by French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, for his part, said he expects the resumption of the armistice in his country’s eastern war next week. a peace summit with Moscow with a Franco-German mediation.
This worsening conflict in Eastern Ukraine intensified the diplomatic crisis between Russia and the United States, with respective expulsions of diplomats and sanctions imitated by other European countries such as Poland or the Czech Republic.
Czech authorities announced on Saturday that they will expel 18 Russian diplomats identified as spies.
“We have good reason to suspect the involvement of agents from GRU Unit 29155 in the explosion of the Vrbetice (East) ammunition depot,” which took place in 2014 and left two dead, the Czech Prime Minister explained. Andrej Babis.
GRU Unit 29155 is the same unit that included Russian agents suspected of poisoning double agent Sergey Skripal in Salisbury, UK in 2018.