GENICHESK, September 4. /TASS/. Russian Security Service agents in the Kherson Region have detained a member of a Ukrainian nationalist battalion who headed an extremist cell involved in the energy and water blockade of Crimea, the agency’s Kherson Region office told reporters.

"The Kherson Region department of the Russian Security Service has detained a Russian citizen, a resident of Genichesk, born in 1973, involved in the activities of an illegal armed group. It was established that in 2014 he voluntarily joined and actively participated in the activities of the Crimean Tatar Battalion named after Noman Chelebidzhikhan (designated as a terrorist organization and banned in the Russian Federation - TASS) operating on the territory of Ukraine. TASS), which aimed, in addition to blocking food, energy, and water from getting to Crimea from the side of the Ukrainian border, to violate the integrity of the Russian Federation and fight, including with the use of weapons, for the return of the peninsula to Ukraine," the agency said.

It said the detainee headed a cell of the extremist organization Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, which is banned in Russia.

The defendant recruited new members to the organization to participate in illegal activities and financed the establishment of a base in the Kherson Region. The Investigative Committee started a criminal case on charges provided for by Part 2 of Article 208 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The detainee faces up to 15 years in prison. He is now in custody.