SIMFEROPOL, April 22. /TASS/. The activities of an agent of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry Main Intelligence Directorate, who was gathering information on units of the Russian Defense Ministry, have been thwarted in Crimea, the press service of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Directorate for the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol told journalists.

"The FSB Directorate for the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol has thwarted the illegal activities of an identified agent of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry Main Intelligence Directorate. It has been established that a resident of the Volgograd Region, born in 1995, established contact with a representative of the Ukrainian special services on his own initiative and, on the instructions of his handler, collected and transmitted information on the deployment of Russian Defense Ministry units in the city of Sevastopol," the statement reads.

The Investigative Department of the FSB for the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol has opened a criminal case against the detainee under Article 275 of the Russian Criminal Code, on charges of treason. He will be held in pretrial detention.