“And on the day of the visit she [was] also restricted in her movements.”
After Zelensky’s visit, the security services continued to follow the woman. The SBU said that Russian intelligence services then tasked her with identifying “the location of electronic warfare systems and warehouses with ammunition of the armed forces of Ukraine in the Ochakiv region”, which would be used “to prepare a new massive airstrike on the Mykolaiv region,”
“To gather intelligence, she travelled around the territory of the district and photographed the locations of Ukrainian objects,” it said.
If found guilty, the woman could face 12 years in prison, the SBU said.
The announcement of the arrest came a day after officials from dozens of countries wrapped up talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, aimed at discussing a peace plan in Ukraine. On Sunday, Ukrainian presidential adviser Andriy Yermak said the meeting was “very productive” despite varying points of view.
Russia was not invited to the talks, and they were dismissed by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as “doomed to failure”. Attendees included an envoy from China, which had not attended prior talks in Denmark.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov that Beijing would maintain an “independent and impartial” stance on the Ukraine war while maintaining “close strategic coordination” with Russia in international affairs, according to a readout from the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Monday.
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Meanwhile, attacks continued across Ukraine, including two separate strikes on Monday on a residential building in the eastern city of Pokrovsk. At least four civilians and a state emergency service official were killed and more than a dozen people were injured, according to Ukraine’s interior ministry.
Vyacheslav Gladkov, the regional governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, said that an air defence system had downed a Ukrainian drone near the city on Monday.
Drone strikes on Russian targets have increased in recent weeks. On Friday, Ukraine used sea drones to attack a Russian naval base, a Ukrainian government official said; the next day, a sea drone hit a Russian oil tanker near occupied Crimea. After an attack on Moscow last week, Zelensky called the war “returning” to Russia “an inevitable, natural and absolutely fair process.”
Yermak, the presidential adviser, said on Monday that Russia had returned 22 soldiers to Ukraine in a prisoner exchange. Such swaps have occurred throughout the war. Photos showed the men dressed in military uniforms and draped in Ukrainian flags.
The Washington Post
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