"KHARKIV, Ukraine -- Six officers from Ukraine's domestic intelligence agency, the SBU, ran up the stairs of a drab apartment block in a residential neighborhood of this city near the Russian border at 6:30 a.m. Hiding behind a shield that flashed disorienting lights, one of them banged on Igor Popov's door.
"Open up, SBU is here!" bellowed the lead officer, clad in body armor with his face covered by a balaclava. "Open up now, SBU is working here," he said, adding a couple of expletives.
As the door lock turned, the squad rushed in. "On the floor, on the floor now!" the commander shouted at Mr. Popov, 59. "All clear," yelled another after checking for weapons as the men tied the suspect's hands and moved him to the living room for an interrogation.
"You are a Soviet man, right? You must believe the Soviet Union stood for peace, right?" an investigator asked as Mr. Popov lay sprawled on the carpet. "Yes," he replied quietly. "So why are you supporting Russia?" the investigator asked. "I haven't done anything wrong," Mr. Popov said as agents of the SBU, the Security Service of Ukraine, examined a tablet belonging to Mr. Popov. They flicked through posts on his social-media account that praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and featured the letter Z.
Shelves in the hallways and living room were packed with Soviet and Russian military-themed fiction. A two-volume biography of Stalin, "Generalissimo" took pride of place. In the kitchen, a magnet on the refrigerator featured an image of Mr. Putin holding a puppy.
In Kharkiv and other predominantly Russian-speaking parts of eastern Ukraine, a sizable share of the population, especially among older generations, long felt more affinity with Moscow than Kyiv.
Some Ukrainians continue to side with Moscow. And in a conflict that Ukraine sees as existential, Ukrainian security services are hunting for citizens that they view as abetting the enemy. That involves active pursuit of collaborators in Russian-held territory, some of whom have been targeted in recent assassination attempts, and detentions of suspected Russian agents.
"We do these raids almost every day," said one of the SBU officers in Mr. Popov's apartment, who like most others in the team was seconded to Kharkiv, the largest city in eastern Ukraine, from the capital Kyiv in April.
Many of those arrested are posting pro-Kremlin messages on social media, driven by loyalties to Russia and without any contact by the government in Moscow, the SBU says. Some take money from the Russians to do so. A handful were actively passing military information, such as Ukrainian artillery positions, to the enemy, according to the SBU.
According to the SBU, Mr. Popov was a prodigious poster on social media, praising Russia.
He remains behind bars, awaiting a trial, according to the SBU, and couldn't be reached for comment." [1]
1. The Ukraine Crisis: Security Officers Hunt Kremlin Backers, Spies
Trofimov, Yaroslav.
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 03 June 2022: A.6.
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