Ukraine
A senior security service officer will be tried for “high treason”.
According to Ukraine’s National Investigation Office, instead of organizing the security of the Kharkiv region, he “actually took care of sabotage activities” for the benefit of Moscow.
Published
Alley of Heroes at a cemetery in Kharkiv.
AFP
Ukraine’s National Bureau of Investigation (DBR) announced on Monday that the former head of Ukraine’s security services (SBU) in the Kharkiv region (east) will be investigated for “high treason”, which Moscow has accused of sabotage. Beginning of the Russian invasion.
40-year-old Romain Dudin took care of vandalism (actions) instead of organizing the region’s security, the DBR alleged in a press release on Telegram.
He faces life
“Once the defense gets to know his case, it will be sent to court,” he said, adding that the man, who was arrested in September and is still in custody, faces life imprisonment. Much of this territory, bordering Russia, has been occupied by Moscow troops since the Russian invasion began in February 2022 and until their withdrawal last September.
Mr. Dutin assumed that the Russian attack would succeed and that the Russian occupation force would take his “subversive actions” to account, DBR continued in its press release. At the beginning of the invasion he abandoned his post “without permission” and ordered his subordinates to leave the city of Kharkiv “without any legal basis”, the investigation office again alleged.
According to the same source, the former official “created conditions designed” for the Russians to seize weapons and ammunition stored at the regional headquarters of the SBU in Kharkiv.
Many layoffs
He held his post since 2020 and was dismissed in May 2022 after President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the region. “I dismissed the head of the SBU in the Kharkiv region, because he did not work for the defense of the city in the first days of the invasion, but only thought about himself”, the Ukrainian president later announced.
Ivan Baganov, head of the SBU last July, fired his childhood friend Volodymyr Zelensky, accusing him of not doing enough in the fight against spies and collaborators in Moscow. Many regional heads of SBU also expressed their thanks.
A senior SBU officer in Kherson region (south), another area quickly occupied by Moscow’s military at the start of the invasion, is suspected of providing the Russians with secret maps of landmines blocking their advance, regional officials said.
(AFP)
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