The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the National Police of Ukraine detained the coordinator of military car arsonists who operated in the Kherson, Odesa and Mykolaiv regions.
This is reported by SBU.
Thus, the law enforcement officers neutralized a criminal group of four people who, on the order of the Russian Federation, set fire to Ukrainian military vehicles. The priority targets of the paliyas were military pickups involved in combat missions.
The coordinator of the group was a former prisoner from the Kherson region, who had previously served a sentence for drug trafficking. He involved his roommate and two other criminals whom he met in prison in illegal activities.
According to the investigation, the perpetrators were active in three cities at once. There, they first tracked the cars of Ukrainian defenders, and then agreed on potential targets with the Russian curator. After agreeing, the perpetrators arrived at the parked military vehicles in the dark and set them on fire. Then they filmed the fire on a mini-video camera and transferred the footage on flash drives to the coordinator, who had to send reports to FSB.
The attackers managed to set fire to five vehicles of the Defense Forces. The SBU officers detained the leader of the group and his roommate in Odesa, and two paliyas in Kherson.
According to the investigation, the organizer of the criminal group came to the attention of FSB even when he was in prison. After his release, a representative of the Russian special service contacted the former prisoner and offered him cooperation for money.
During the searches of the homes of the detainees, law enforcement officers seized a Kalashnikov assault rifle, a pistol with ammunition, F-1 and RGD-5 grenades, flash drives, a video camera and mobile phones with evidence of crimes.
The perpetrators were informed of the suspicion of obstructing the activities of the Ukrainian military during a special period, committed by a group of people based on a previous conspiracy (Part 2 of Article 28, Part 1 of Article 114-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).
The perpetrators are now in custody. They face up to eight years in prison. They are still deciding the issue of additional qualification of the crimes of the detainees.
- In Ukraine, since the beginning of summer, military vehicles have been burned en masse. This is usually done by Ukrainians at the behest of Russians, who offer to set fire to cars for money and record it on camera. Then the Russian media spread these videos and photos, saying that it was supposedly disgruntled Ukrainians setting fire to the cars of military commissariat workers, thus speaking out against mobilization.