The Security Service of Ukraine has thwarted new attempts by Russian intelligence services to destabilize the socio-political situation in central Ukraine.
As a result of comprehensive measures, a group of former communists was neutralized in Cherkasy.
The investigation established that the group’s subversive activities were remotely coordinated by former Communist MP Petro Symonenko, who fled to Russia at the start of the full-scale invasion, escorted by Russian special forces.
Under orders from Russia, he formed an underground group that included a former communist MP, the ex-head of the city’s Communist Party organization, its secretary, and an ideological functionary.
According to case materials, the suspects publicly justified Russia’s armed aggression and its war crimes, including the missile strike on Okhmatdyt and the mass killings in Bucha.
The accomplices were documented spreading pro-Russian narratives in conversations with locals and voicing support for the occupiers.
It was also established that, on behalf of their clandestine group, the perpetrators prepared letters to Putin, praising the Kremlin leader and calling for the restoration of the former USSR.
For their meetings, the group covertly used an old office of the now-banned Communist Party.
Searches at their residences and meeting locations in Cherkasy and Kyiv uncovered banned communist symbols, as well as computers and mobile phones containing evidence of their crimes.
SSU investigators have charged all four individuals under Articles 436-2 (Parts 1, 2, and 3) of Ukraine’s Criminal Code (justification, recognition as lawful, or denial of Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine, and glorification of its participants, committed by an organized group).
The suspects face up to 8 years in prison with confiscation of property.
The operation was carried out by SSU officers in the Cherkasy region under the procedural guidance of the regional prosecutor’s office.
Notably, in the spring of 2023, the SSU conducted a large-scale special operation that uncovered underground cells of the "Communist Party of Bolsheviks" in seven other regions of Ukraine.
