MOSCOW, August 10. /TASS/. The Kiev regime intends to send a group of intelligence operatives to Kharkov to uncover and punish those residents who are sympathetic toward Russia, head of Russia’s National Defense Control Center Mikhail Mizintsev said on Wednesday.

"It is known for a fact that in the near future, under the pretext of allegedly looking for the spotters of air and artillery strikes by the Russian armed forces, the Kiev regime is planning to send to Kharkov a group of members of the SBU and of other forces in order to conduct another large-scale punitive operation on detecting those citizens who are loyal to Russia (express pro-Russian views) and subsequently accusing them of collaborationism," the military official said who also heads Russia’s Joint Coordination Headquarters for Humanitarian Response in Ukraine.

According to his information, those apprehended will be threatened with physical violence against their family members and subjected to torture as it has already happened in Odessa, Nikolaev, Slavyansk, Sumy, Chernigov and several other populated localities.

Mizintsev noted that, as grounds for detention, the intelligence agents will use call history and text messages to Russian phone numbers found in residents’ phones, chats on messengers condemning the current Ukrainian regime, subscriptions to Russian channels on social networks, photo and video materials of destroyed Ukrainian military facilities as well as informers’ reports on their neighbors, friends, relatives or acquaintances.