Become Russia's Mainstay, Ukrainian Intelligence Hunts For Moscow Spies: Give Missile Target Coordinates To Troop Movement

JAKARTA - Enjoying smoking, a man in a black long-sleeved shirt and cargo pants does not realize that his movements are being watched on a dusty street in the city of Sloviansk, eastern Ukraine.

"He's ours," a man radioed from his car down the street.

"This is it," he snapped.

From another direction, a van veered, two men in combat uniforms and face coverings jumped out. The man in black fell to the ground, as if on instinct. The officers, from the Ukrainian security service or SBU, tapped him and took their valuable piece of evidence, the cell phone of the man in black.

In eastern Ukraine, the sound of Russian and Ukrainian artillery fire was almost constant. Most of the Russian shooting was indiscriminate, but some was aimed at high-value targets such as military encampments, weapons depots, or the SBU's own headquarters in Kramatorsk, some of which were destroyed in the early weeks of the war.

The SBU said Russian forces relied heavily on collaborators such as the spy allegedly arrested in Sloviansk this weekend, to determine their targets and evaluate the success of their attacks.

When confronted by SBU investigators at the scene, the suspect quickly admitted to communicating with the enemy.

"What did he ask you for?" asked the investigator.

"Coordinates, movements, and so on," said the suspect with his head down.

"The location of the attack. That kind of thing. The general situation, and so on," he continued.

"Do you understand why he needs the coordinates?" asked the investigator.

"Yes, I understand. I understand," replied the suspect.

The SBU said they carry out such checks once or twice a day. This man had only been examined for four days.

Some of the suspects are classic intruders: Russian citizens, brought to the Donbas region at the start of the war, living among the residents. Others are political sympathizers.

But the person leading today's inspection, called Serhiy, said most people were spying for money.

"There are less and less ideological traitors. Even those who supported the aggression of the Russian Federation in 2014 in the Donbas, during the formation of the so-called DPR and LPR (People's Republic of Donetsk and Lugansk), when they saw what happened with Mariupol, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Bucha and tens and hundreds of other regions, they are starting to change their world view of Russia," he said.

The suspect this weekend told investigators he was offered just 500 hryvnia, or about 17 dollars, in exchange for targeting information. He said he was recruited via the messaging app Telegram by someone who identified himself as 'Nikolai'.

Investigators read out their exchange, as the SBU agent stands with the gun unholstered.

"You did a great job yesterday," wrote Nikolai. "The same information is needed today. Photos, videos, military geo-data at CNIL (military camp). How long does it take to get that information?"

"Understood, understood," replied the suspect. "I'll get back to you. One and a half to two hours."

"Okay, wait," Nikolai replied. "Be careful. Watch the camera so they don't see you. Take photos and videos discreetly."

Investigators explained to the suspect that they confiscated his phone.

"Who should I contact to notify you of your detention?" the investigator asked.

"My mother," said the suspect.

"Do you remember the number?"

"There's a number on the phone."

With that, the man was taken to an unmarked SBU car, and driven away. Serhiy said he would be transferred west, to the Dnipro, where he would be tried.

If it is proven that his espionage led to death or "severe consequences," the sentence could send him to prison for the rest of his life, Serhiy said.

"These missiles come at the coordinates transmitted by such criminals," he told us at headquarters. "People died because of these missiles. Our soldiers were killed, and civilians were killed."

Serhiy says he tries to contain his anger, but its hard not to take the betrayal personally.

"Every time I catch someone like him, I know one thing: I'm from here myself. My loved ones, all my relatives, are from Lyman", the closest city that Russia has been bombarding for weeks, he said.

"Right now, they have nowhere to live, they have nothing. They have nowhere to return to. I remember it all the time. I remember the Kramatorsk train station all the time," he said, referring to Russian air strikes in April. which killed at least 50 people.

"We pick up people, one by one," he concluded.