UK hunts spies intent on stopping missile supplies
Russian agents making concerted efforts to foil long-range weapons that have tilted balance of war
BRITAIN is helping Ukraine hunt Russian spies targeting Western-supplied weapons, the acting head of Kyiv’s military intelligence has said.
Finding and destroying military aid flowing into Ukraine is “goal number one for Russian agents”, according to Maj Gen Vadym Skibitsky.
Long-range artillery, such as the US Himars system, have brought Moscow’s advance almost to a halt and rendered bridges in the Kherson region impassable, cutting off the Kremlin’s troops as Ukraine prepares a counter offensive.
Western officials believe Moscow has instructed intelligence agents, possibly including spies from the GRU’S unit 29155 – deemed responsible for the 2018 Salisbury nerve agent attack and other attempted assassinations – to find the weapons donated by Western partners.
Speaking from Kyiv’s heavily-fortified Government Security District, Gen Skibitsky said tracking down the Russian spies searching for the supply lines was “impossible” without help from the UK and other international partners.
“As far as military intelligence is concerned Britain and the US have provided almost everything from information to equipment.”
Gen Skibitsky gave no specific details of the support Britain is providing, but said the assistance was “minute-to-minute, real-time information of all kinds”.
A significant portion of the lethal aid flowing into Ukraine is originally flown into the Rzeszów–jasionka airfield in Poland, close to the border.
Russian agents thought to be operating near the airfield are suspected of tracking military flights, passing information to colleagues in Ukraine. These operators then follow the weapon transfers to find the storage sites.
These locations are then targeted for destruction by Russian long-range weapons such as Kalibr cruise missiles fired from submarines in the Black Sea.
Russian spies have been found as far west as Chernivtsi, near the border with Romania.
Russia claims to have destroyed several Himars rocket launchers in recent weeks. However, Ukraine and Western sources say none have been damaged by Russia. Four more Himars systems arrived in Ukraine yesterday, taking the total in operation to 16.
Gen Skibitsky said: “The cooperation with Poland is also very high as almost 90 per cent of all military assistance comes from there. We are talking about very tight cooperation and joint operations with our partners.”
In the weeks leading up to the Feb 24 invasion Russian “subversive elements” were joined by “reconnaissance groups” to gather information on Ukrainian military intentions, troop locations and logistic sites, Gen Skibitsky said. The first weeks of the war were “very difficult” as a result.
“We had to identify, detect and neutralise them, but we haven’t got rid of all of them. These days, collecting data on the military assistance coming to Ukraine from Western partners is the goal number one for Russian agents.
“They use all kinds of intelligence: airborne, space, collaborators from the Ukrainian side. Russia has a lot of information. The movement of people is intense. There is an entire mechanism designed to acquire and neutralise these people.”
Ukraine, which is as large as France with a 1,430-mile frontline, requires huge resources to find spies passing into and across its territory.
“It’s not just special forces, but also police and ordinary Ukrainians reporting strangers in their local area. Everyone is working as one body because it’s about the existence of Ukraine,” Gen Skibitsky said.
Kyiv has established hotlines in some areas under Russian control – such as Enerhoder, location of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant – for local people to pass information on “collaborators and occupiers”.
Asked how the Us-provided Himars multiple launch rocket systems have targeted Russian fuel and ammunition depots and battlefield headquarters in eastern Ukraine so precisely, the general said “in this case in particular, we use real-time information”.
US officials are not providing direct targeting information, which would potentially undermine their case for not being direct participants in the war.
However, he suggested there was a level of consultation between intelligence officials of both countries prior to launching missiles that would allow Washington to stop attacks if they were unhappy with the intended target.
“I can’t tell you whether we are directly tasking British and American satellites, but we have very good satellite imagery,” he told The Telegraph.
“We have very good cooperation with our partners in the UK in this field. We have very good communication with all the sister intelligence agencies.”
Ukraine’s military intelligence department is known to work closely with colleagues in Britain’s MOD.
Gen Skibitsky said he was pleased Gen Jim Hockenhull, Britain’s former chief of defence intelligence, has been promoted to head of the UK’S Strategic Command, responsible for military intelligence, special forces and spacebased capabilities.
Increasing Ukraine’s “agent capabilities” inside Moscow has been the priority for Gen Skibitsky’s department since Russia’s 2014 invasion.
“Human intelligence is one of the cornerstones of our activity. This is because in 2015 an ambitious task was set to us to get into the decision-making centres of our adversaries.
“For us it’s very easy to work with our adversary. We used to share the same language, same appearance as people and until recently, the same mentality. We used to be one country. A lot of Ukrainians used to live or still live in Russia and have established very good state careers there.”