The SSU Counterintelligence has prevented four terrorist attacks in Kyiv, which the aggressor planned to conduct on the 9^th of May. As a result of a multi-stage special operation, the SSU apprehended enemy agents who were installing explosive devices in construction hypermarkets of a well-known chain and near a cafe.

The improvised explosive devices were disguised in tea boxes and consisted of a timer, a detonator and plastic explosives with an incendiary mixture that was intended to cause large-scale fires.

According to the GRU’s plan, the explosives were to detonate during peak hours in the hypermarket in order to cause maximum damage to the civilian population. The perpetrators planned to place the IEDs among flammable materials so that such a fire could not be quickly extinguished.

Another attack was to take place near a popular Kyiv cafe. The GRU agents intended to plant explosive devices in a car parked nearby.

In this way, the main directorate of the general staff of the russian armed forces (‘the GRU’) wanted to destabilize the situation in Ukraine and send a signal on the symbolic day of May 9 about the supposed presence of a russian underground in Kyiv, awaiting for the arrival of the ‘russian world’.

‘By planning these terrorist attacks, the russian intelligence services have once again demonstrated their criminal nature. We were proactive and disrupted the enemy plans in time. Every step of the perpetrators has been documented and they will be punished. As will anyone who tries to work for russia. It is symbolic that the dates to which the russians want to dedicate their terrorist attacks are gradually becoming a symbol of the failure of their intelligence agencies,’ said the SSU Head Vasyl Maliuk.

The SSU Counterintelligence established that the ‘supervisor’ of the russian terrorist attacks was a GRU officer Yuriy Syzov, serving in the military unit No 92154.

He personally gave orders to the recruited agents and even recorded a video instruction on how to install an explosive device in a store of the same chain in moscow oblast.

The SSU had been monitoring his activities for a long time and documented the criminal actions of the agents.

Yuriy Syzov is also responsible for organizing sabotage in Ukraine, which was to take place in Lviv region in February 2024. At the time, the SSU was also ahead of the plot and thwarted the explosions.

The SSU has now identified the entire chain of this network, including the agent and combat teams, the smugglers who delivered the explosives from russia, and the direct perpetrators of the terrorist attack: they were caught ‘red-handed’ installing IEDs in the third hypermarket.

The detainees have now been notified of suspicion under the Articles of the CCU:

• 111 (high treason);
• 113 (sabotage);
• 258 (terrorist act).

They face life imprisonment.

The operation was carried out under the procedural supervision of Lviv Region Prosecutor’s Office.