MOSCOW, August 27. /TASS/. Officers of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) have detained a 35-year-old resident of Volgograd, who was preparing an attack on a military airfield in the Saratov Region under orders from the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), the FSB said in a statement.

According to the agency, "the suspect, acting upon instructions from the SBU, rented an apartment near the military airfield in Engels, where he was supposed to install a navigation module for enemy drones to strike Russian Defense Ministry infrastructure facilities. Disguised as a courier for a popular delivery service, he moved around Saratov, planning to retrieve subversive equipment from a cache," the FSB added.

He was detained by FSB officers at his residence. The man committed the crime motivated by the desire to obtain Ukrainian citizenship. According to the FSB, he lived in Ukraine’s Lvov Region in 2019-2022, but after his residence permit expired, he stopped reporting to the Ukrainian migration authorities. The man eventually came to the attention of the Ukrainian Security Service and was recruited for a mission to travel to Russia and carry out an act of sabotage and terrorism in exchange for Ukrainian citizenship. After undergoing special training in Kiev, he returned to Volgograd and was ordered by his SBU handlers to travel to the Saratov Region to prepare a terrorist attack on a military facility.

The FSB branch in the Volgograd Region opened a criminal case against the man under Article 275.1 of the Russian Criminal Code ("Secret Cooperation with Foreign Intelligence Officers"), which carries a penalty of up to eight years in prison. He has been taken into custody. Investigative measures continue.