In Kyiv, Kharkiv, and five other Ukrainian oblasts, the Security Service of Ukraine exposed secret groups of the so-called “Communist Party of the Soviet Union.” Its participants justified Russian aggression against Ukraine and collected intelligence data.

After the full-scale invasion, the association organizers tried to create an extensive network of regional committees in Ukraine. Their representatives were to call for mass support of the Russian occupiers and set up a military administration to collect intelligence data and prepare for enemy sabotage.

Residents, particularly former and active soldiers who started their service during the USSR, were campaigned to join their groups.

The investigation established that the pro-Kremlin organization is headed by Yuri Shchipkov, the head of the “Central Committee of the Bolsheviks,” currently in Moscow. On his instructions, the clandestine branches of the association were created in Kyiv, as well as in the Kharkiv, Lviv, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhya, Vinnytsia, and Chernihiv oblasts.

The case involved 45 people who used their homes for conspiratorial meetings of members of the enemy clandestine groups and planning subversive activities. Law enforcement officers searched and found Russian passports, unregistered weapons and ammunition, mobile phones with evidence of correspondence with the Russian “curator,” and pro-Kremlin propaganda materials.

According to Security Service materials, one of the association’s organizers was notified of suspicion for disseminating propaganda and public calls for military conflict. For this, the organization’s members face up to 10 years of imprisonment.

Earlier, the Security Service of Ukraine found hundreds of thousands in cash, pro-Kremlin literature, and occupiers` dry rations in the Moscow-linked churches in Kharkiv Oblast.

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