The SSU has collected new evidence of high treason committed by Volodymyr Sivkovych, former deputy secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, who is hiding in russia and working for the FSB.

The former official is involved in organizing the kremlin-ordered large-scale information campaigns to artificially discredit Ukraine’s top military and political leadership.

For this purpose, he engaged prominent politicians in Kyiv, including Nestor Shufrych, who is now suspected of treason.

Shufrych was one of the main ‘speakers’ who, under Sivkovych’s coordination, voiced and promoted kremlin narratives during TV appearances and in online publications.

Sivkovych’s henchmen spun fabrications about the internal situation in Ukraine, as well as moscow-ordered ‘talking points’ on a ‘lack of alternatives’ to a pro-russian vector in Ukraine’s foreign policy.

In this way, the kremlin tried to destabilize the situation inside Ukraine as much as possible before russia’s full-scale invasion and discredit official Kyiv in the eyes of its Western partners.

In 2014, in order to escape justice for his attempts to disperse the Maidan by force, Sivkovych went to moscow, where began organizing massive information subversions against Ukraine’s state security.

This was one of priority tasks that Sivkovich was carrying out on the instructions of career officers of the 9^th directorate of the operational information department of the FSB’s 5^th service.

Based on the evidence, the SSU notified Sivkovych of suspicion under Article 28.2 and 111.1 of the CCU (high treason, committed by a group of persons after prior conspiracy).

Earlier, following the SSU and SBI’s investigation, the traitor was declared suspect under two Articles of the CCU:

• 255.1 (forming, managing and participating in a criminal association or criminal organization);
• 111.1 (high treason).

As Sivkovych is hiding in russia, efforts are underway to bring him to justice. The offender faces life imprisonment.

The investigation was conducted under the procedural supervision of the Prosecutor General’s Office.