Ex-head of the Crimean branch of the SBU Kulinich knew about Russiaʼs plans for war, but deliberately hid this information

The State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) stated that the former head of the State Security Service (SBU) in Crimea Oleh Kulinich knew that Russia was preparing an invasion of Ukraine from the peninsula, but hid it from the leadership of the SBU.

Ukrinform writes about this.

According to SBI communications adviser Tetyana Sapyan, in the first hours of the full-scale Russian invasion, Kulinich blocked all attempts to notify the central apparatus of the Security Service about the situation in Crimea and ordered subordinates to leave the place of duty, after which he himself left for Kyiv.

"In one of the apartments where Kulinich lived, investigators found a cache of weapons and his documents from his service in the KGB of the USSR. Presumably, all this was prepared in case of the occupation of Kyiv and the arrival of Russians to the capital," added Sapyan.

She also noted that Kulinich was a confidant of ex-Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Volodymyr Sivkovich, to whom he transferred all secret information from the Ukrainian special service and state meetings, and also received tasks from him, for example, appointed "his" people to senior positions in the Security Service of Ukraine, primarily in the border regions of Ukraine: Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv and others.

• On July 16, 2022, law enforcement officers detained the former head of the SBU Office in Crimea Oleh Kulinich on suspicion of treason. The President Volodymyr Zelensky appointed Kulinich as head of the SBU Office in Crimea in October 2020, and dismissed him on March 2, 2022.
• In the Kulinich case, the former deputy secretary of the NSDC in 2010-2013 Volodymyr Sivkovich, who could coordinate espionage, as well as the former head of the Main Department of Internal Security of the SBU Andriy Naumov, are on trial. The latter is in Serbia — Ukraine has requested his extradition.
• On April 5, 2023, the Security Service of Ukraine and the State Bureau of Investigation published intercepted conversations between the former head of the SBU Main Directorate in Crimea Oleр Kulinich, and his supervisor, ex-Deputy Secretary of the National Security Council Volodymyr Sivkovich. The investigation emphasized that this proves Kulinichʼs cooperation with the FSB of Russia.