“Tried to recruit Russian pilots”
Registered on the FSB website, Ukrainian military intelligence officers are described as acting on behalf of their country’s leadership, attempting to recruit Russian pilots for money and a promise of citizenship in an EU state.
Another account notes that the aim was to persuade pilots to fly and land at airports controlled by Ukraine’s armed forces, according to the report.
The Russian department indicated that during an operational exercise, counterintelligence officers obtained information that helped the Ukrainian forces inflict fire damage on several military installations.
Additionally, the FSB said that Ukrainian operatives and their accomplices involved in the operation have been identified.
According to TASS, citing FSB video material, Ukrainian intelligence was prepared to pay pilots up to 2 million dollars for a hijacked Russian Aerospace Forces aircraft. Russian authorities claimed the Ukrainian side aimed to simulate an intervention by a hijacked plane. The interest centered on aircraft models Su-24M, Su-34, and Tu-22M3.
There were claims that Ukrainian intelligence proposed sending the families of Russian military personnel to the European Union in exchange for planes and the opening of foreign accounts.
As indicated by fragments of correspondence between Ukrainian intelligence officers and Russian pilots, the GUR would provide up to 4,000 dollars in advance to ready pilots for hijacking, with further payments promised, according to reporting by RIA Novosti based on FSB data.
“Clonidine poisoning”
Ukrainian intelligence was also described as planning to take hostages from the families of Russian pilots involved in hijacking plots, according to a Russian FSB operations officer on the TV channel Russia 24.
The official asserted that family members could be abducted, using blackmail and pressure as standard tactics for Ukrainian special services, with no moral limits cited.
It was claimed that a sailor aboard a Russian warplane targeted for hijacking might be poisoned with clonidine. A broadcast segment featured a phone conversation between a Ukrainian officer and a Russian pilot who allegedly agreed to hijack the aircraft.
Footage showed containers of clonidine and ampoules, said to be seized from a Volgograd cache, with the same drug described in the conversation.
The FSB asserted that Western support, particularly from British intelligence, appeared to be involved in the operation.
The broadcast also displayed about four thousand dollars allegedly seized from a Ukrainian courier, described as funds intended for a Russian pilot who agreed to hijack the plane.
“I took it as a joke”
Russia’s Rossiya 24 aired an account from a Russian military pilot who helped foil the hijacking plan, stating that an offer to smuggle aviation equipment into Ukrainian territory came from an unknown man.
Initially, the pilot treated the approach as a joke, but after further contact, he concluded that Ukrainian special services and their Western allies were behind the proposal, and that his stance on his country’s leadership policy was being tested through a covert operation.
The pilot reportedly also faced proposals offering European passports and a life abroad.
Video materials published by the FSB allegedly show that Ukrainian intelligence disclosed the locations of air defense systems and airfields in preparation for hijacking, information shared with the pilot who pretended to agree to the plan.
Evidence included air defense coverage maps for southeastern Ukraine, flight field layouts for Ozernoe in the Chernihiv region and Starokonstantinov in Khmelnytsky district, along with elevation maps around Priluki airport and Zhytomyr district, indicating concentrations of portable anti-aircraft missiles in certain settlements.
Russia’s Russia 24 also circulated a segment referencing the lead researcher from a publication typically viewed by Russia as a foreign agent, illustrating ties between Ukrainian military intelligence and NATO-linked entities according to official Russian narrations.
The report described a Grozev-led network coordinating with two female couriers who met a Moscow-based courier carrying an advance of 4,000 dollars for a Russian pilot who allegedly agreed to hijack the aircraft.
An FSB official noted that Ukrainian statements about ties to MI6 were part of a broader narrative linking Ukrainian operations with Western intelligence agencies.