The SSU Military Counterintelligence Department has carried out a multi-stage special operation, successfully luring a collaborator out of temporarily occupied Crimea. He was detained in Ukrainian-controlled territory.

According to the investigation, the suspect is the former director of an out-of-school educational institution in Yevpatoria who had been indoctrinating local children with kremlin propaganda and preparing them for war against Ukraine.

The SSU detained him in the Odesa region based on testimony provided by one of his former colleagues, whom the russian occupiers had forcibly held on the peninsula.

The SSU Military Counterintelligence facilitated the woman’s evacuation from Crimea, after which she helped expose the perpetrator and provided relevant testimony.

The investigation established that, before the occupation of Yevpatoria, the collaborator had headed a local out-of-school educational institution but supported russia’s armed aggression in 2014.

In return, the russian occupiers reappointed him as the head of the seized children’s and youth institution, which was used to indoctrinate the younger generation.

Under the guise of sports clubs and cultural and artistic events, the collaborator involved children aged 5 to 18 attending the institution in compulsory militarised propaganda activities.

Investigators documented how active servicemen of russia’s armed formations conducted firearms and tactical training sessions with children on the premises of the occupation-run institution.

Furthermore, during public gatherings, the suspect imposed slogans supporting the kremlin regime on teenagers and their parents, glorified russian occupation forces and sought to instil hatred towards Ukraine.

The investigation also established that he had participated in the deportation of children from temporarily occupied areas of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions to russia via Crimea.

Investigators are currently examining the possibility that the occupiers may have dispatched the suspect to Odesa region to collect intelligence on the locations of Ukraine’s Defence Forces.

Based on the evidence collected, SSU investigators notified the detainee of suspicion under Article 111-1.3 of the CCU (collaborationist activities).

The suspect is in custody and faces imprisonment.

The operation was carried out jointly with the Ukrainian Navy’s Special Reconnaissance Unit Yanhоly (Angels), under the procedural supervision of the Prosecutor’s Office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol.