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UPI
7 days ago
- Politics
- UPI
Ukraine, Russia trade blows in escalating spy war
Vasyl Malyuk, head of the Security Service of Ukraine, led a mission to track and capture two Russian special services agents Kyiv. The suspects, a man and a woman, resisted arrest and died during a firefight. File Photo by Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA July 13 (UPI) -- Ukraine and Russia have escalated their shadow war of espionage, sabotage and assassinations, with both countries claiming a growing list of captured agents, intercepted plots and cross-border attacks involving civilians, drones and improvised explosives. On Sunday, Ukraine's Security Service, or SBU, announced that its officers had killed two Russian special services agents in Kyiv. The pair, a man and a woman, had allegedly assassinated an SBU colonel under orders from Russia's Federal Security Service, or FSB. The operation was personally led by SBU chief Lt. Gen. Vasyl Malyuk, who said the suspects were tracked and eliminated after resisting arrest. "As a result of covert search and active counterintelligence measures, the enemy's lair was discovered," Malyuk said. "During the arrest, they began to resist, there was a firefight, so the villains were eliminated." According to the agency, the Russian operatives had entered Ukraine in advance of the attack, studied the victim's daily routine, retrieved a silenced pistol from a drop site and fatally shot the officer in Kyiv's Holosiivskyi district. Operation Spiderweb The killing is the latest flashpoint in a rapidly intensifying spy war that began to escalate in early June after Ukraine launched "Operation Spiderweb," a drone- and sabotage-based campaign striking military targets deep inside Russia. In the days that followed, Russia's FSB announced a string of arrests, including an SBU agent in Crimea accused of planning to use an improvised explosive device to carry out sabotage and "terrorism." Ukraine responded with its own crackdown, detaining a National Guard member in Kharkiv accused of directing Russian airstrikes against his unit, and arresting an alleged FSB agent embedded in a construction firm tasked with building military infrastructure. Both agencies began publicizing near-daily arrests, many involving civilians allegedly recruited online through Telegram or WhatsApp. On June 6, Ukraine said it captured two people working for the FSB to locate anti-aircraft systems in Dnipropetrovsk, and two more planning IED attacks on military targets in Dnipropetrovsk and Lviv. One was identified as a Ukrainian deserter. A day later, Ukraine said it detained two Russian agents who had detonated an IED in Dnipro that injured a law enforcement officer and destroyed a vehicle. On June 10, the FSB claimed to have stopped a Russian citizen allegedly preparing to attack a civilian gathering in Krasnodar on behalf of the SBU. It said Ukraine had intensified efforts to recruit Russians online, particularly via messaging apps. The same day, Ukraine said it arrested a Kharkiv woman accused of both sharing troop positions and calling for "buffer zones" in Ukraine on social media during ongoing ceasefire talks. Bomb and murder plots Ukraine detained a 57-year-old man in Lviv accused of scouting air bases for Russia, and a woman who allegedly manufactured IEDs for the Russian military intelligence agency, the GRU. That woman's devices were allegedly used by a 21-year-old in a car bombing outside a Ukrainian military administrative building in the Odesa region. Also under investigation is a sitting member of Ukraine's parliament who has been in custody since November 2024 for alleged high treason. The SBU said the politician participated in spreading Russian disinformation. On June 14, Ukraine said it arrested a man in Odesa who had just planted an explosive device intended to kill a military officer. That same day, it detained a man in Zaporizhzhia who initially drew scrutiny for pro-Russian posts on Telegram and was later accused of marking Ukrainian military sites on Google Maps for Russian airstrikes. Russia, too, expanded its intelligence efforts in occupied Ukrainian territory. On June 16, the FSB claimed it thwarted a car bombing plot in Kherson against a Russian official and the next day detained a citizen in Crimea for filming air defense systems. Ukraine answered with more arrests, including alleged informants aiding Russian airstrikes in Donetsk and an "elite GRU unit" operating near Kyiv. On June 20, the SBU said it had detained a Ukrainian deserter-turned-FSB-agent accused of plotting an assassination in Kyiv for money and arrested six people it described as "pro-Russian internet agitators." The pace continued through late June. Russia said it arrested two residents in occupied Zaporizhzhia, accused of leaking military positions to Ukraine, while Ukraine said it captured suspects hired for $400,000 to assassinate Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Gordon. It also said it had foiled two recent attempts to kill President Volodymyr Zelensky. Increasing surveillance The following day, the FSB detained two Russians for planning to bomb a gas facility in Berdyansk, while Ukraine arrested a teenager for reporting troop movements. That same day, Ukraine said it had gathered evidence to charge three Russian military officials with war crimes committed during the 2022 occupation of Bucha. On June 25, the FSB claimed to have foiled an SBU plot in Moscow. In the days that followed, it detained four Russian citizens for alleged treason and warned the public against interacting with strangers on encrypted messaging apps. That day, Ukraine said it had captured a 19-year-old Kharkiv woman who allegedly lured Ukrainian soldiers to a rigged scooter giveaway and attempted to flee after the IED exploded. Ukraine also claimed to have thwarted a similar Russian plot involving a fake date arranged through a dating app. As July began, the SBU announced it had disrupted several new Russian efforts, including reconnaissance of energy infrastructure in Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia, plotting attacks in Cherkasy, and an explosives plot targeting government buildings in Kharkiv. Russia responded on July 7 with the arrest of four citizens accused of filming energy facilities in several Russian regions. On July 8, Ukraine said it thwarted a planned bombing at a hotel in Rivne by a woman who left an IED in a guest room and attempted to detonate it remotely. Two days later, the FSB said it detained Ukrainian intelligence officers in Melitopol accused of passing along Russian troop positions. The most recent development from Russia came Friday, when it said it arrested two residents in Bryansk accused of conducting surveillance on law enforcement and military personnel for Ukrainian drone and bombing strikes. Ukraine's counterintelligence campaign has not been limited to Russia. On July 9, the SBU announced it had detained alleged Chinese spies accused of trying to collect classified information about Ukraine's Neptune missile program.
UPI
09-07-2025
- Politics
- UPI
European Court of Human Rights rules Russia violated international law in Ukraine
A local girl with a dog reacted in Dec. 2024 at the site of a missile strike in downtown Kyiv, Ukraine. On Wednesday, the France-based International Court on Human Rights handed down two rulings against Russia, saying since 2014 it violated international law in Ukraine as source of "widespread" and "flagrant" cases of human-rights abuses stemming from Russia's full-scale Ukrainian invasion in February 2022. File Photo By Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA July 9 (UPI) -- The European Court of Human Rights delivered Wednesday two of four rulings against Russia in an international inquiry brought by Ukraine and the Netherlands. Judges at the France-based court handed down two rulings against the Russian state, saying since 2014 it violated international law in Ukraine as source of "widespread" and "flagrant" cases of human-rights abuses stemming from Russia's full-scale Ukrainian invasion in February 2022. "In none of the conflicts previously before (the Court had) here been such near universal condemnation of the 'flagrant' disregard by the respondent State for the foundations of the international legal order established after the Second World War," the court wrote in its judgment. In addition, the Strasbourg court said Russia was the culprit in the 2014 crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in a tragedy that claimed nearly 300 lives, many of whom were Dutch citizens. Notably, it was the first time that an international court ruled on Moscow's role for downing the Boeing 777 on top of human rights violations in Ukraine since Russia's 2022 invasion. The legal actions were filed prior to the European Court of Human Rights expelling Russia in 2022 following the invasion of Russian troops into Ukraine. A Dutch court in January 2023 said its native Netherlands could bring its case over the doomed aircraft in front of the ECHR. The two remaining cases filed by Ukraine still getting weighed address the kidnapping of Ukrainian kids to Russia, and other war-related violations in the Russian-occupied Donbas region of Ukraine. In May, the UN's Aviation Council officially said Russia was the principal for the MH17 crash that was on its way to Kuala Lumpur via Amsterdam. Meanwhile, nearly 10,000 other cases against Russia are pending in front of the international tribunal in France filed by separate entities. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky formally approved plans last month to create a new international court in order to later prosecute senior Russian authorities for the now years-long Ukrainian invasion, with no end yet in sight. On Wednesday, Europe's human rights court pointed to "repeated" human rights violations by Russia over a more than eight-year window. It included "indiscriminate" attacks by Russian military units, executions, allegations of torture, intimidation, unlawful and arbitrary detentions and persecution of journalists and religious groups. It follows a similar 2021 ruling by the human rights court that said Russia likewise committed violations during its 2008 war in neighboring Georgia after a cease-fire in the "buffer zone." The court also pointed in its ruling on Wednesday to "rape as a weapon of war," acts of looting, private property destruction and "the organized removal of children to Russia and their adoption there."
UPI
23-06-2025
- Politics
- UPI
13 killed, 57 hurt in Russian aerial assault against Kyiv, provinces
Emergency personnel at work Monday morning at the scene of a Russian missile strike on a five-story residential building close to the center of Kyiv, where at least six people were killed. Photo by Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA-EFE June 23 (UPI) -- At least 13 people were killed and 57 injured in Ukraine, half of them in Kyiv, after Russian forces attacked the capital and other targets in the eastern half of the country with hundreds of drones and ballistic and cruise missiles, officials said Monday. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a social media update that six people were killed when a missile struck and badly damaged a building in the central Shevchenkivskyi district, but that the rescue operation was still underway and there might be more casualties buried under the rubble. "A terrible picture in the Shevchenko district. Extensive damage to a five-story building. Rescuers, medics, and municipal services are working at the scene. The blast wave also damaged the apartments of the 25-story residential building opposite. Ten people were rescued from it. Among them, a child and a pregnant woman," said Klitschko. Another 22 people were injured, 12 of them hospitalized, in attacks on residential and non-residential buildings in five other districts of the capital, he added. The governor of the region, Mykola Kalashnyk, said one person was killed in Bilotserkivka district, southwest of Kyiv, and four were injured, two of whom were admitted to the hospital. Residential targets were hit in Boryspil and Bila Tserkva, where a medical facility and a hotel were also destroyed. The town of Bucha, just northwest of Kyiv, one of the first Ukrainian settlements overrun by Russian forces and scene of the U.N.-documented execution of at least 73 civilians and other suspected war crimes after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, also came under attack, damaging several houses and vehicles. In neighboring Chernihiv province to the northeast, which borders both Russia and Belarus, at least three people were killed and 11 injured, including four teenagers, in missile and drone strikes on Chernihiv, the regional capital, and four other districts, according to Chernihiv Gov. Viacheslav Chaus. In Donetsk, one of four Ukrainian provinces partly or fully controlled by Russian forces, Gov. Vadym Filashkin reported on Telegram that two people had been killed in Siversk, 18 miles east of the city of Slovyansk, and in Myrne, east of Pokrovsk, with five more injured. In part-Russian-occupied Kherson, Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin reported via social media that one person had been killed and six injured in Russian drone, artillery and airstrikes on Kherson city and several other communities, damaging seven apartment buildings, 14 houses, a gas pipeline and other civilian targets. The Ukrainian Air Force said on its official account on Telegram that of 368 incoming attack drones, ballistic and cruise missiles, mostly targeting Kyiv, air defenses managed to down all but 14.
UPI
17-06-2025
- Politics
- UPI
Russian airborne strikes on Kyiv kills 15 people, injures at least 100
The aftermath of a missile strike on a nine-story residential building Kyiv's Solomyanskiyi district early Tuesday. Photo by Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA-EFE June 17 (UPI) -- At least 15 people were killed and more than 100 injured in Kyiv overnight during an eight-hour long airborne assault by Russian forces, which fired scores of missiles and drones at the Ukrainian capital, authorities said. Many of the fatalities were in missile strikes on three high rise apartment buildings that collapsed or partially collapsed in Solomianskyi and another central district Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said in a update on social media. "This night in Kyiv and its surroundings the enemy used 175 drones, more than 14 cruise missiles and at least two ballistic missiles. The nature of the damage -- direct hits on residential buildings. Missiles -- from the upper floors to the basement. We are dealing with a complete enemy," he wrote. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on his Telegram account that a U.S. citizen, a male age 62, also died in Solomianskyi district in a house opposite where medics were providing assistance to the victims from the partial collapse of a nine-story apartment building. It was unclear if he died of natural causes, or from enemy action. Three deaths had been confirmed in Darnytsia district on the left bank of the Dnieper River, he added. Wides swathes of the city came under attack with than two dozen areas sustaining damage, with serious damage in eight districts. In a video posted online, Klitschko claimed cluster munitions had been found in one area of the city. Use or development of cluster munitions are banned under a 2008 international treaty ratified by 111 countries, although Russia is not one of them. Neither is Ukraine or United States. Surrounding areas of the capital were also targeted with at least two people reported injured. At least one person, a 60 year-old woman, was killed and 17 people were injured in a drone strike on the southwestern city of Odessa, according to the regional leader, Gov. Oleh Kiper, who said one woman was missing, feared dead. President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on X that the number of injured in Kyiv, Odessa and elsewhere was rising as search and rescue efforts continued with emergency personnel working flat out at all sites of impact. Zelensky said that in total more than 440 drones and 30 missiles had been used in the attacks which also targeted five other provinces. "Kyiv has faced one of the most horrific attacks. Also, overnight, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Chernihiv, Zhytomyr, Kirovohrad, Mykolaiv and Kyiv regions were attacked. Such attacks are pure terrorism. And the whole world, the United States and Europe, must finally respond as a civilized society responds to terrorists. "Putin does this solely because he can afford to continue the war. He wants the war to go on. It is wrong when the powerful of this world turn a blind eye to it. We are in contact with all partners at every possible level to ensure an appropriate response. It is the terrorists who must feel the pain, not innocent peaceful people," said Zelensky.
UPI
06-06-2025
- Politics
- UPI
Four killed, 53 injured in Russian drone, missile attack on Ukraine
Ukrainian firefighters at work Friday in a Kyiv apartment building hit by an attack drone during a massive overnight raid that killed four people, three of them emergency workers. Photo by Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA-EFE June 6 (UPI) -- At least four people were killed and 53 injured in Ukraine after Russia launched almost 500 drones and ballistic missiles as the country came under sustained airborne assault for the second night in a row. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said four people were killed and 20 injured after civilian and industrial infrastructure was targeted in six districts of the capital, but that search and rescue operations at multiple sites were continuing Friday morning, he wrote in a social media update. Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said in a Telegram post that three of the fatalities were emergency service staff killed as they worked under fire while the attack on Kyiv was ongoing, and that nine other State Emergency Service workers had been injured, some of them seriously. Kyiv City Military Administration said the combined missile and drone attack caused widespread damage, both from direct hits and debris from downed drones, with subway tracks and trains sustaining damage and a residential tower block and an educational institution set ablaze. The authority said firefighters were continuing to battle a major blaze at a metal warehouse in Solomianskyi district in the west of the city. In Ternopil province, 260 miles southwest of Kyiv, 10 people were injured, including five emergency workers hurt while battling a large fire, according to the regional governor. President Volodymyr Zelensky said almost all of Ukraine had come under attack, including the Khmelnytskyi, Lviv, Volyn, Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Poltava and Sumy regions. "Some of the missiles and drones were shot down. I thank our warriors for their defense. But unfortunately, not all were intercepted," he wrote on X. The State Emergency Service in the northwestern province of Volyn said 15 people were injured when a 9-story apartment building in Lutsk, the capital, was struck. In a social media update, the SES said damage to residential and administrative buildings and manufacturing facilities had been extensive. Kherson Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin reported 10 people injured after Russian forces, which occupy part of the province, opened fire with artillery on residential districts and civil infrastructure in the Ukrainian zone. Four people were also hurt in Chernihiv, three in Poltava, three in Kharkiv and two in Sumy. Ivan Federov, governor of Zaporizhzhia province, which is under partial Russian occupation, said on social media that the Ukrainian part of the province had come under heavy attack from airstrikes, artillery and drones, damaging infrastructure and homes, but there had been no deaths or injuries. However, Ukraine also launched its own attacks into Russia, claiming to have successfully carried out "a preemptive strike, hitting enemy airfields and other important military facilities." The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said on social media that drones had carried out a second successful attack overnight on Russian aircraft at Engels airfield in the Saratov region, following a strike at the weekend. It also claimed Diaghilev airfield in the Ryazan region, where air tankers and escort fighters used to carry out missile strikes against Ukraine were based, was also hit. Russia's state-run TASS news agency said civilian and industrial targets in Moscow and 11 other regions, including Saratov and Ryazan, were targeted by drones and missiles, injuring at least six people. The defense ministry said air defenses shot down or disabled 174 drones and three guided missiles, but no mention was made of damage to military bases. TASS confirmed a blaze in Engels in the Saratov region from a drone strike, but said it was at an industrial facility. The agency said the injuries occurred in the city of Michurinsk, 250 miles southeast of Moscow, where three people were hurt, two of them hospitalized, and in the Tula region, 120 miles south of Moscow, where three people were being treated in the hospital. Passengers in cars that were struck by debris from drones downed in Kaluga Region sustained minor injuries, the regional governor said.
