Russia claims to have dismantled Ukrainian plan to capture Russian aircraft

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Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has claimed Monday to have dismantled an operation by Ukrainian military intelligence to capture Russian Air Force aircraft and added that Kiev’s plans would have NATO supervision.

“The FSB has uncovered and stopped the operation by the Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry to capture fighter jets of the Russian Aerospace Forces, supervised by NATO special services,” the agency’s Public Relations Center has said.

Thus, it has pointed out that “Ukrainian military intelligence officers, acting on behalf of the political leadership of their country, attempted to recruit Russian military pilots in exchange for financial rewards and guarantees of obtaining citizenship in a country of the European Union (EU).”

In this regard, the FSB has stressed that the aim was “to persuade them to fly the planes and land them at air bases controlled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” as reported by the Russian news agency TASS.

The agency has detailed that the identification of these plans by the counterintelligence services has made it possible to bomb military facilities in Ukraine, since “information was obtained that helped the Armed Forces to inflict damage on several” of these facilities.