Professor recruits student and ex-soldier as Russian collaborators – SBU

The State Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has identified all members of the Russian military intelligence (GRU) spy group that coordinated the shelling of Kyiv and carried out sabotage in the Odessa region, the Security Service of Ukraine reports.

In a Telegram channel on Tuesday, the Ukrainian special service reported that the cell consisted of four people: two of them were direct agents and executors of orders, one was a liaison through whom the agents received instructions, and another was the direct supervisor of the attackers, a personnel officer of Russian military intelligence, Maksym Chachin.

SBU counterintelligence agents detained the saboteurs back in February 2025, and since then, comprehensive measures have been underway to identify other members of the enemy cell and document their contacts.

As it became known during the investigation, an employee of the Russian military intelligence service involved a former teacher of one of the famous Kyiv universities in subversive activities, who left for Russia in 2021 and began to cooperate with the occupiers.

"After the start of the full-scale war, the professor put her former student, a 27-year-old Kyiv resident who supported Russia's armed aggression, in direct agent contact with the enemy," the report says.

Then, as the SBU notes, the woman introduced him to another resident of the Ukrainian capital, who joined the agent group. "He turned out to be a 40-year-old ex-military man who had information about the bases of individual units of the Defense Forces," the report specifies.

According to the Ukrainian special services, together they went around the relevant locations, marked them on Google maps and sent them to the curator to prepare missile and drone attacks on Kyiv.

"Later, the agents moved to Odesa, where they first "kept a low profile," and then, on the instructions of the enemy, set fire to two mobile communication towers and several electrical substations," the report states.

The defendants were also preparing to commit terrorist attacks using improvised explosive devices, but the Security Service prevented this.

Currently, SBU investigators have sent an indictment to the court against both agents under several articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine: Part 2 of Article 28, Part 2 of Article 111 (high treason committed by a group of persons in a pre-arranged conspiracy under martial law); Part 2 of Article 28, Part 2 of Article 113 (sabotage committed by a group of persons in a state of martial law); Part 2 of Article 194-1 (intentional damage to power facilities); Part 2 of Article 28, Part 1 of Article 263 (illegal handling of weapons, ammunition or explosives, by a group of persons in a state of martial law).

The perpetrators are in custody. A report on suspicion of the curator of these agents from the GRU of the Russian Federation and their liaison is also being prepared.

The comprehensive measures are being carried out by the SBU officers in the Odesa region under the procedural guidance of the regional prosecutor's office.