by Lorenzo Cremonesi
Via Naumov Andriy Olehovych and Kryvoruchko Serhiy Olexandrovych: a step in the hunt for “spies and traitors”? Kyiv’s defense lacks details. Most reported comment: They were too ‘old fashioned’
“I don’t have time to deal with traitors now. But soon they will all be identified and punished». Volodymyr Zelenskyy called them exactly the two torpedoed generals in his unusually long communiqué, which was published late the other day: “traitors” and, moreover, “military and highranking officers who cannot decide where their homeland is, who have taken the oath of allegiance to the violate Ukrainian people and do not defend their freedom and independence ». It seems like a bolt from the blue in the pathos of patriotic unity against the common enemy, which has closed the Ukrainian ranks for six weeks, even if in reality the hunt for “spies and traitors” and the climate of general suspicion have only increased prolongation of the war. The two senior officers are Naumov Andriy Olehovych, former Homeland Security chief, and Kryvoruchko Serhiy Olexandrovych, former intelligence (Usbu) chief for the Kherson region, the latter of which was taken by the Russians three weeks ago but is now being fought back by Ukrainian troops. Two “ex’s” in truth, but it seems they still had a strong hold on the war machine.
During the day, the spokesman for the presidium did not provide any further information, the circumstances of the allegations are not known. Both social media and national media are extremely sparse with details, only the official grade is shared. The most popular comment is that the two are not agents in Moscow’s service, but oldfashioned officers who served in the Soviet Army in their youth before the collapse of the USSR and are now struggling to keep up with the pace. and the goals of the new officers raised and trained after the 2014 Donbass and Crimean wars, formed by the British and US academies.
It should be added that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are now moving from an initial phase of defensive structures to a much more dynamic phase aimed at active counterattacks, and in this logic the officers who cannot keep up are eliminated. But it is also not excluded that the problem is much more serious and should be framed in the broader context of what is widely referred to as “hunting down saboteurs”. We encountered the topic in all the cities we visited: from Lviv to Kyiv and the surrounding villages, at railway stations and places of national interest, and also here in Kharkiv. It stems from the general belief among the population and among political and military leaders that the country’s most proRussian elements could act as the fifth pillar of the invading force. There is practically no local or foreign journalist who has not been stopped, sometimes brutally, by soldiers or civil defense volunteers who have asked him to show documents and, above all, to prove that he is not a Russian saboteur. Often we were forced to delete photos and videos, which, according to the Ukrainians, after the release of Russian artillery, could help identify the targets to be hit.
In addition, these precautions result from concrete facts. In the first days of the battle for the capital, when Russian leatherheads were witnessed at Hostomel airport, cells of Russian fighters managed to almost devastate the Maidan with machine guns and hand grenades. And defense officials say they have eliminated 20 enemy cells and 350 agents arrested across the country since Feb. 24.
April 1, 2022 (change April 1, 2022 | 19:28)
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