Employees of the FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs detained a resident of Moscow on suspicion of providing financial assistance to the Ukrainian army. A case of treason was brought against him (Article 275 of the Criminal Code).
“The illegal activity of a resident of Moscow in the form of financial assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine in activities aimed at the security of the Russian Federation was suppressed,” the FSB Center for Public Relations said. .
By decision of the Lefortovsky District Court, the woman was detained for two months.
No information was given about the defendants in the case. The FSB claims he was detained while trying to leave Russia. The FSB also said it was conducting operational search activities aimed at, among other things, arresting the detainee’s accomplices.
According to the Chapter One human rights project, this is the first known case where financial assistance to Ukraine formed the basis for initiating a criminal case for treason. At the same time, the Prosecutor General’s Office officially announced in February 2022 that any assistance to Ukraine during a military operation will be considered a violation of Article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
If found guilty, a Muscovite can be sentenced to imprisonment from 12 to 20 years and a fine of up to 500 thousand rubles or an income of up to three years.
In the summer of 2022, the FSB issued “warnings” of treason to three residents of the Moscow region, due to donations to the Ukrainian foundation “Come Back Alive”.
Accusations of cooperation with Ukraine
On March 4, the Altai District Court arrested a resident of Barnaul, whose detention was previously reported to the FSB. He is also charged under Article 275 of the Criminal Code. According to the investigation, Russia is suspected of collaborating with Ukraine against its interests. It was not disclosed exactly what the detainee did. But he was accused of collaborating with an unnamed Ukrainian organization, according to TASS.
Two days ago, on March 2, the FSB suspected that one of the residents of Komsomolsk-on-Amur was collaborating with Ukrainian military intelligence. The agency believes that the man intended to transfer information about military installations in the Khabarovsk Territory to Ukraine. The FSB believes that these data can be used to “perform acts of sabotage and terrorism, attacks with precision weapons and drones” in the loading and road areas of Russian military equipment. A criminal case was also opened against the man under the article of treason.
The FSB regularly reports on arrests of saboteurs or gunners working for Ukraine.
In particular, at the end of February, FSB officers detained two residents of Sevastopol, born in 1979 and 1995, who, according to the ministry, made an offer to the special services of Ukraine to purchase data on the objects of the Russian Ministry of Defense from them. The FSB claims that one of the detainees transmitted data about the location of Russian military installations by e-mail, and the second confirmed his intentions, but did not have time to send anything. The men were also charged with treason.
On February 15, the FSB announced the arrest in the Moscow region of a citizen of Ukraine, who, according to the intelligence service, was an SBU agent and was involved in two acts of sabotage on the Moscow railway. According to the FSB, for the signaling, centralization and automatic blocking of the Moscow Railways, he set fire to two cabins.
On January 30, intelligence officials reported that three eighth graders were detained in the Moscow region, accused of preparing sabotage on the Kursk railway. The agency claims that schoolchildren were recruited through Telegram and promised a monetary reward for sabotage.
On January 31, the head of the Main Intelligence Agency of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Kirill Budanov, in an interview with The Washington Post, said that there are agents of the Ukrainian special services in Russia.
“There are people who plant explosives. There are drones. The head of Ukrainian intelligence said that until Ukraine’s territorial integrity is restored, there will be problems inside Russia.
He also noted that Kiev is trying to recruit Russians who “understand that Russia must be different”.