Ukraine arrests ‘Russian agent’ to foil grenade attack plot

UKRAINIAN secret service agents have detained a suspected Russian agent who was allegedly planning to blow up an ammonia tank in the country’s war-torn east.

Ukraine’s SBU security service claims the unidentified Ukrainian is an operative of Russia’s FSB intelligence agency, tasked with targeting key infrastructure of the Luhansk region.

The man was reportedly caught redhanded in the city of Severodonetsk, a few dozen miles away from the separatist-controlled area, as he was retrieving two grenade launchers from a weapons cache for the attack that was supposed to blow up a 3.8-tonne ammonia tank at a chemical plant. Ammonia is highly toxic and a spill would have endangered lives and caused environmental damage.

Footage, released by the SBU yesterday, showed the man lying on his stomach following the arrest with SBU agents finding two grenade launchers in a gym bag nearby. The man, who was previously wanted by Ukrainian police for fighting alongside Russianbacked separatists, is in custody facing charges of sabotage, the SBU said.

The conflict between pro-russia separatists and government troops in eastern Ukraine has claimed more than 13,000 lives and displaced a million people since it erupted in 2014.

Major hostilities died down after a 2015 truce but fighting is still simmering and large swathes of Ukraine’s industrial east remain under separatist control. Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian president, has been pushing for a peaceful solution to the conflict since being elected last year.

Hopes for a peace settlement emerged when Mr Zelenskiy held talks last year with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, and secured the release of more than 200 Ukrainian prisoners from separatist custody. The FSB has not commented on the arrest.