The SSU Counterintelligence has neutralised another enemy agent network in western Ukraine. Three members of the cell were exposed preparing caches with components for improvised explosive devices for terrorist attacks in the region.

According to the investigation, russia’s orders were carried out separately by a 20-year-old man from Kharkiv, a 16-year-old schoolgirl and a 17-year-old young man from Rivne. After recruiting the minors, the occupiers used them unwittingly under the pretext of delivering courier orders.

The individuals came to the attention of russian intelligence services on Telegram channels while looking for easy money.

For a promise of quick payments, they set up hiding places with IED components, which were to be picked up by potential executors of terrorist attacks.

For example, the teenage girl received the geolocation of a cache from which she obtained electric detonators for explosives and hid them at another site.

The russians assured the girl that those were ‘ordinary radio antennas’, not bomb components.

Another suspect, the Kharkiv resident, arrived in the western region on the enemy’s instructions, took an anti-personnel mine from the cache, removed the plastic explosive from it, divided it into parts, disguised them in juice boxes and placed them in a new cache.

Then, the 17-year-old young man from Rivne region took the explosive substance from there and delivered it to several hiding places designated by the russian intelligence services.

The SSU Counterintelligence uncovered all three perpetrators at an early stage of their sabotage activities, documented each of them and neutralised the caches.

An investigation is currently underway into all individuals involved in the case.

The operation was carried out by the SSU Office in Lviv region under the procedural supervision of the regional Prosecutor’s Office.