After a high-precision Russian projectile struck a newly built shopping center in central Kyiv, killing at least eight people on March 21, the state security service (SBU) detained Pavlo Artemiev, who posted a video on a social media platform of Ukrainian military equipment being stationed at the site on the first day of Moscow’s renewed invasion of the war-torn country.
The destruction of the 120,334-square-meter Retroville shopping and business center in the capital’s historic Podil district was a reminder to the public of the dangers of posting imagery of Ukrainian military movements and locations.
The Russian airstrike took place around 10:45 p.m. and was allegedly linked to Artemiev’s social media post on Feb. 24, the first day of when Kremlin despot Vladimir Putin ordered a multi-pronged onslaught on the country as part of a war he was waged against Ukraine since 2014 when the Crimean Peninsula was forcibly seized and certain parts of the easternmost regions of Luhansk and Donetsk were occupied.
An SBU video of the suspect showed him repenting for his actions.
Authorities are still determining whether to charge him with one of the eight existing counts of enemy collaboration in the criminal code.
“Consciously or unconsciously, the man was a spotter for the enemy – the investigation will establish” his guilt, the domestic intelligence agency said.
Numerous government agency social media bots and hotlines are in place for Ukrainians to notify authorities of Russian military movements and dislocation in what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for a “total resistance” against the invading forces.
Martial law is imposed and general mobilization has been ordered for all able bodied men aged 18 to 60 years to help defend the country.
“Transmit information about the occupiers, don’t publish data about us [Ukrainian forces] or the results of enemy shooting,” the SBU urged.
The National Agency for Prevention of Corruption (NAZK) on March 20 published a warning listing eight different categories of collaborators who might be helping invading Russian forces.
NAZK alone announced that it has received “60 reports of possible collaborators…from concerned citizens from all over the country.”
Suspected confederates have so far been detained in all corners of the country in the war that Ukraine’s military estimates has killed more than 15,000 Russian personnel and destroyed multiple hardware.
The United Nations says about 10 million people, or a quarter of the population, has been displaced with about 3.5 million people fleeing abroad in what is the biggest migration of people on the European continent since World War II.
Neither Moscow nor Kyiv are regularly disclosing their casualty figures. In the first week of the renewed invasion, Russia said nearly 500 of its soldiers had been killed. On March 13, Zelensky said about 1,300 Ukrainian servicemen had fallen.
A Belarusian national was detained on March 20 in the western region of Volyn for allegedly “collecting data for the enemy about the placing and movements of Ukrainian military equipment as well as the status of military mobilization in the region,” the SBU said.
Russia has used Belarus as a launch pad for its invasion and Ukrainian military intelligence says there is a high likelihood that the neighboring country will join Russian invading forces.
The same day, Ivan Filipenko in the easternmost region of Luhansk was detained in the city of Rubizhne on similar charges.
In Dnipro, a southeastern city of about 1 million people, a suspect was detained for disseminating “fake news to the Kremlin on social media [while] posing as a journalist,” the SBU said.
The security agency added that he allegedly “was recruited by Russian intelligence to collect information about Ukrainian military data in Dnipro and Kyiv, including the positions of…air-defense systems.”
In central Kirovohrad oblast, an unnamed male was arrested “who openly supported the Russian invasion and showed disrespect toward the armed forces of Ukraine.”
A hacker who purportedly helped Russia’s invasion in the war was arrested on March 17. He allegedly broadcasted text messages to Ukrainian officials asking them to lay down their weapons and join Russia.
The unnamed suspect provided Russians with in-country mobile communication and “helped make up to thousand calls in one day,” the SBU said.
The SBU continued: “All the collaborators will be held accountable before the law.”
