SEVASTOPOL, May 29. /ITAR-TASS/. The Ukrainian National Security Service has arrested Sergei Bugayev, a school director in the village of Alexandrovka in the Kherson region, on charges of treason and espionage after his son, a student at Nakhimov Naval School of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, was granted Russian citizenship. The school director was arrested in his work place and put into custody in Kiev, his son told ITAR-TASS.
His father could not be reached by telephone for several days. Then he finally answered the call, saying in Ukrainian that he was all right, but was not to be reached by telephone for several days. His son suspected that something was wrong because they had always spoken Russian at home. When the son called again, a strange man said that his father could not answer. The student's mother had long kept the truth from her son until Andrei Bugayev's fellow village folk told him what had really happened.
In May, Ukrainian ICTV television ran a documentary film titled "Undeclared War" in which Sergei Bugayev was featured as "a resident of the Kherson region who had been visiting compounds of Ukrainian troops and then reported their location to the Russian side." The motive behind the activity of the alleged "spy" was to promote his son's career, the film authors said.
The arrest of the father of the Nakhimov Naval School student triggered protests from the school administration who intend to report the incident to the Russian Navy commander. "The Russian citizenship was the student's own choice, his parents are not responsible for that. The case was framed up so as to intimidate people in Ukraine and split families," said senior officer at the Nakhimov Naval School Captain Dmitry Makarov.
Deputy department chief for work with personnel of the Nakhimov school Colonel Alexei Lyashenko said he was concerned over the future of students from different regions of Ukraine who decided to continue education in Sevastopol and then serve in Russia.