A Ukrainian diplomat who is accused of receiving sensitive information from a Russian citizen, in the midst of a military and diplomatic crisis between the two countries, has been detained, the Russian security service FSB informed on Saturday.
“A Ukrainian diplomat, consul of the Consulate General of Ukraine in St. Petersburg, Alexander Sosonyuk, has been detained by the Russian FSB,” the security service said in a statement, adding that the arrest took place on Friday.
Russia’s internal intelligence service said Sosonyuk was found “flagrant” during a meeting with a Russian citizen when he sought to receive “classified” information.
“Such activity is not compatible with its diplomatic status and is clearly hostile to the Russian Federation,” the FSB said.
“Under international law, action will be taken against the foreign diplomat,” he added.
Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement that it had summoned Russia’s Ukrainian affairs minister Vasili Pokotilo on Saturday to protest Sosonyuk’s “illegal activities”, “incompatible with consular office status.”
Russia said the diplomat’s presence on Russian soil was “no longer welcome” and “recommended that he leave his borders within 72 hours.”
– Challenge –
In turn, Ukraine confirmed that the diplomat was detained for several hours before being released and then went to the Ukrainian consulate.
Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko said the arrest was “another challenge in the wake of Russia’s destabilization activities,” a statement told AFP.
He expresses a “strong protest against Sosonyuk’s illegal detention” and says he “completely dismisses” the veracity of the accusations against his compatriot.
He added that Ukraine would expel a Russian diplomat in retaliation within 72 hours.
Many Ukrainians have been detained in Russia and Russians in Ukraine for espionage cases since 2014, but the arrest of a diplomat is rare.
Russia and Ukraine have been at war since pro-Westerners came to power in Kiev in 2014, followed by the annexation of Crimea by Moscow and a war between Kiev forces and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine that left more than 13,000 dead. .
– Rising tensions between Russia and the West –
Since the beginning of the year, this conflict with the separatists has seen a new outbreak that has left dozens dead, and Kiev accuses Russia of wanting to “destroy” it.
Russia, for its part, said it was “not threatening anyone” while denouncing Ukraine’s “challenges”.
For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, received in Paris on Friday by French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said he was waiting for the resumption of the armistice in his country’s eastern war next week, while calling for a peace summit with Moscow, with a Franco-German mediation.
This worsening of the conflict in eastern Ukraine has exacerbated the diplomatic crisis between Russia and the United States, with the respective expulsions of diplomats and sanctions imitated by other European countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic.
Czech authorities announced on Saturday that they would expel 18 Russian diplomats identified as spies.
“We have good reason to suspect the involvement of agents from the GRU 29155 unit in the explosion of the ammunition depot in Vrbetice (east)”, which took place in 2014 and left two dead, the Czech prime minister explained. Andrej Babis.
The GRU 29155 unit is the same unit that included Russian agents suspected of poisoning double agent Sergey Skripal in Salisbury, UK in 2018.