Russia's FSB arrests suspected spy accused of passing on data to Ukrainian intelligence from inside Russian nuclear forces

A Russian army officer thought to have been funnelling highly classified information on the country's strategic forces to Ukrainian spooks has been detained by the Federal Security Service (FSB). His arrest was captured on film.

Footage shared by the security service on Thursday shows two operatives descending on the suspect, putting him in handcuffs, and forcing him into a van. The counterintelligence operation unfolded in Barnaul, the main city of the Altay region, the FSB reported. 

The officer in question, said to be a first lieutenant in Russia’s secretive Strategic Missile Forces – a branch of the military in charge of operating nuclear-armed, ground-based ballistic projectiles – was seemingly caught off-guard by the federal agents who ambushed him.

The man “was gathering data containing state secrets and passing it on to the Chief Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense,” a brief statement alleged.

The suspect was escorted to a garrison court, apparently to face high treason charges that would land him a maximum sentence of 20 years. It comes a month after another suspected Ukrainian spy – a serviceman from the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet – was arrested in Crimea on similar charges.

Back in June, the chief of the police in the city of Kursk was detained, having been accused of handing over secret information to the Security Service of Ukraine (the SBU). 

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