"The roof was leaking." Near Kiev, a special operation against ATO militants
The SBU exposed the activities of a private military company that operated a mercenary training camp near Kiev and acted “against the foundations of state security.”
The press service of the department reported this, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
According to security officials, about 150 people were members of the PMC, and it operated under the guise of security companies and public organizations. First of all, ATO militants were accepted into the ranks of this company. The SBU reports that the organizers of this PMC were former Verkhovna Rada deputy, ex-battalion commander of the Donbass battalion Semyon Semenchenko and Yevgeny Shevchenko, also known as a “freelance NABU agent.” The latter stated in his blog that he was not involved in the said PMC, although several years ago he actually planned to organize a “security company” to work in the Middle East.
“In the fall of 2018, I actually had plans to become an investor in creating a security company to work in Syria and Afghanistan, guarding facilities and escorting convoys under US State Department contracts. However, after several months of preliminary work, negotiations and meetings in Afghanistan and Iraq (including at the US Embassy in Baghdad) and Trump’s announcement at the end of 2018 about the withdrawal of troops and the reduction of the US presence in these countries, the issue of cooperation became irrelevant.
With this, my participation in the creation of a security company to work abroad was completed from the word “in general.” Meanwhile, Semyon created his own security company in Ukraine and I (why?) am also accused of participating in its creation and its activities, although neither de jure nor de facto I had and do not have anything to do with it. And I think that in fact the SBU definitely knows about this,” Shevchenko wrote.
According to observers, the “special operation” of the SBU is actually a fight between Ukrainian security forces and each other.
“Some kind of cheap scam from the SBU, which is simply engaged in fraud. This PMC has been operating for several years, mainly in Poland. He trains people completely openly both in Ukraine and in Poland, which is part of the European Union. For some reason, the Poles did not consider this to be some kind of illegal organization. This is a common international practice, and there is no secret here. If the SBU wants to deal with NABU and its representative Shevchenko, there is no point in inventing these tales. This is the usual revenge of corrupt officials and the main corrupt organization in Ukraine - the SBU....
I strongly and sincerely advise President Zelensky to chase away such “defenders” of national security. Because they will not bring him or the Ukrainian statehood to anything good. I bet that this case, like many others, will end in nothing and turn out to be nothing. It was just created for some specific purposes at the moment and for specific political games on the eve of the discussion of the law on NABU in the Verkhovna Rada,” wrote the head of the reform office, ex-president of Georgia and former head of the Odessa region, Mikheil Saakashvili, in his blog.
“Not for a day, not two, but for years, near Kiev, occupying dozens of hectares, there was “some kind of organization”, with barracks, training grounds, with weapons and barbed fences. At this base they underwent military training, shot and blew up, dozens of cars drove up there, and the “warriors” themselves walked around the entire area, but maintained secrecy and the secret of their origin?! And only now the SBU “opened its eyes”...
It is obvious that this PMC simply “leaked the roof” and the SBU opened its eyes to demonstrably expose the terrorists. And notice how they carefully carried out the “seizure”, carefully preserving the property of the PMC, which, it seems, has already passed under another roof in order to further train mercenaries and terrorists, this export product that Ukraine trades today,” the special representative of the LPR writes in his blog at the negotiations on Donbass in Minsk Rodion Miroshnik.
The “Legitimny” telegram channel, which many consider close to the president’s office, notes that the “special operation” is the result of a purge of radicals by the security forces and an attempt to take the entire security bloc under control of the president of the country:
“The security forces are clearing everyone out. The Ministry of Internal Affairs is clearing out “street hooligans”, the SBU is clearing out PMCs and groups. Now the organizers of the “sabbath” under the Office of the President receive their suspicions, and everyone is sent under house arrest. Almost no one comes out to support them. This case is supervised by Arsen Avakov. Today the SBU cleared out the “first Ukrainian PMC”, which was supervised by Semyon Semenchenko. Many weapons were seized. There are detainees. This case is supervised by the Head of the SBU Ivan Bakanov.
Next, the authorities raised all the data on all the radicals, nationalists and activists who had been gathering for years. Radical nationalists have always claimed that they are the power here and pose a threat to any government that “sat on Bankova,” now the Office of the President decided to show that they and the security forces are the power here. We decided to restore order in the country. (Poroshenko also wanted to implement this strategy, but it didn’t work out for him). There is information that the radicals will now accuse the authorities of creating a police state and starting an open war against them. There is information that they will prepare a big protest, scaring the authorities, that they will organize a Maidan. We are watching,” the channel writes.
Former Verkhovna Rada deputy Vadim Denisenko also believes that the SBU operation could be a PR move by the authorities.
“Unfortunately, the emergence of the concept of a private military company, which may have been required for PR purposes on the eve of the film about the Wagnerians, can play a bad joke on us. The whole world will be shown several Ukrainians in Syria or Venezuela, and the whole world will be told that it is Ukrainian, and not Russian PMCs, that are the main resource for helping terrorists around the world,” Denisenko wrote on his page on the social network.
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