When the first armored vehicles of the invading Russian army arrived at the heart of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on the evening of February 24, they encountered a Ukrainian unit tasked with defending the infamous facility. In less than two hours and without a fight, the 169 members of the Ukrainian National Guard laid down their arms. Russia had seized Chornobyl, a repository for tons of nuclear material and a key station on the approach to Kyiv. The fallout of Chernobyl, the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster, stands out as an anomaly in the five-month war: a successful blitzkrieg operation in a conflict characterized elsewhere by a brutal and halting Russian troop advance and fierce Ukrainian resistance. Now a Reuters investigation has found that Russia’s success at Chernobyl was no accident, but part of a long-running Kremlin operation to infiltrate the Ukrainian state with secret agents. Five people with knowledge of Kremlin preparations said war planners around President Vladimir Putin believed that, with the help of these agents, Russia would need only a small military force and a few days to force out the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to resign, leave or capitulate. Through interviews with dozens of officials in Russia and Ukraine and a review of Ukrainian court documents and statements to investigators about an investigation into the conduct of people working at Chernobyl, Reuters found that this infiltration reached much deeper than was publicly recognized. Officials interviewed include people inside Russia who were briefed on Moscow’s invasion planning and Ukrainian investigators tasked with tracking down spies. “In addition to the external enemy, unfortunately we have an internal enemy, and this enemy is no less dangerous,” Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, said in an interview. At the time of the invasion, Danilov said, Russia had agents in the Ukrainian defense, security and law enforcement sector. He declined to name names but said such traitors must be “neutralized” at all costs. Ukraine’s State Investigation Bureau is investigating whether the National Guard acted illegally by handing over its weapons to an enemy, a local official told Reuters. The State Bureau of Investigation had no comment. The National Guard defended its unit’s actions at the plant, pointing to the dangers of a collision at a nuclear site. Court documents and testimony, reported here for the first time, reveal the role played by Chernobyl security chief Valentin Vitter, who is in custody and being investigated for absenteeism. An extract from the state register of pre-trial investigations, seen by Reuters, shows that Vitter is also suspected of treason, an allegation his lawyer says is unfounded. In a statement to investigators, Vitter said that on the day of the raid, he spoke by phone with the commander of the National Guard unit. Vitter advised the commander not to endanger his unit, telling him, “Protect your people.” A source with direct knowledge of the Kremlin’s invasion plans told Reuters that Russian agents were deployed to Chernobyl last year to bribe officials and prepare the ground for a bloodless takeover. Reuters was unable to independently verify the details of this claim. However, Ukraine’s State Investigation Bureau said it was investigating a former top intelligence official, Andriy Naumov, on suspicion of treason for passing Chernobyl security secrets to a foreign state. An attorney for Naumov declined to comment. Nationally, sources with knowledge of the Kremlin’s plans said Moscow was counting on activating agents inside the Ukrainian security apparatus. The sources confirmed Western intelligence reports that the Kremlin is lining up Oleg Tsaryov, a hotelier, to head a puppet government in Kyiv. And a former Ukrainian prosecutor general revealed to Reuters in June that Ukrainian politician Viktor Medvedchuk, a friend of Putin, had an encrypted Russian-issued phone so he could communicate with the Kremlin. Tsaryov said Reuters’ account of how Moscow’s operation turned out as a whole “has very little to do with reality.” He did not mention his relationship with the Kremlin. A lawyer for Medvedchuk declined to comment. Medvedchuk is in a Ukrainian prison awaiting trial on treason charges dating back to before the Russian invasion. Although Russia occupied Chornobyl, its plan to seize power in Kyiv failed. In many cases, agents installed by Moscow failed to do their jobs, according to multiple sources in Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine’s Security Council Secretary Danilov said their agents and handlers believed Ukraine was weak, which was “a total misconception.” People the Kremlin relied on as its proxies in Ukraine overestimated their influence in the years leading up to the invasion, said four of the sources familiar with Kremlin preparations. The Kremlin based its planning on “clowns — they know a little, but they always say what the leadership wants to hear because otherwise they won’t get paid,” said one of the four, a person close to the Moscow backers. separatist leadership in eastern Ukraine. Putin is now engaged in a full-scale protracted war, fighting for every inch of ground at enormous cost. But the Russian intelligence infiltration succeeded in one way: It sowed distrust in Ukraine and exposed the shortcomings of the roughly 30,000-strong Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, which shares a complicated history with Russia and is now tasked with hunting down traitors and collaborators. This internal turmoil in Ukraine partially erupted on July 17. In a video address to the nation, President Zelensky suspended SBU chief Ivan Bakanov, whom he has known for years, citing the large number of SBU personnel suspected of treason. Ukrainian law enforcement sources told Reuters that some SBU personnel told them in conversation that they could not reach Bakanov for several days after the Russian invasion, adding to a sense of chaos in Kyiv. Bakanov did not respond to Reuters requests for comment. Zelensky also said that 651 cases of alleged treason and cooperation have been opened against people involved in law enforcement and the prosecutor’s office. More than 60 officials from the SBU and the prosecutor general’s office are working against Ukraine in the Russian-occupied zones, Zelensky added. Ukraine’s presidential administration, the SBU and the prosecutor general’s office did not respond to requests for comment on Reuters’ findings. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “All these questions have absolutely nothing to do with us, so we have nothing to comment on here.” Russia’s intelligence service, the FSB, and the defense ministry did not respond to questions from Reuters.
KGB TIES
Moscow’s spy apparatus has been intertwined with Chernobyl for decades. After the 1986 disaster, when a reactor blew up scattering radioactive clouds across Europe, the Soviet KGB intervened. More than 1,000 KGB personnel were involved in the purge, according to a declassified internal memo to a Ukrainian minister dated 1991. Then-KGB chief Viktor Chebrikov ordered his officers to recruit agents from the plant’s staff and instructed a KGB officer to hold the position of deputy head of the factory in charge of security, according to another memo – an internal KGB communication from 1986. Even after Ukraine gained independence in 1991, Moscow’s spy chiefs remained powerful there. The first head of Ukraine’s internal intelligence service was Nikolai Golushko, who began his career in Soviet Russia. Before his appointment he headed the Ukrainian branch of the Soviet KGB. Golushko kept most Soviet-era officers in their jobs, he wrote in a 2012 memoir. After four months as Ukraine’s spy chief, Golushko returned to Moscow to rejoin KGB headquarters and in 1993 became head of Russia’s newly formed Federal Counterintelligence Service, the forerunner of today’s FSB. In Moscow, Golushko received a visit from the deputy head of the State Security Service of Ukraine, Golushko wrote in the memoir. He recalled how Oleg Pugach, the Ukrainian official, asked for Golushko’s help in finding fabric to make uniforms for Ukrainian intelligence officers. Golushko also wrote that Kyiv, without its own resources and expertise, signed agreements under which the SBU agreed to share intelligence information with Moscow. In return, Moscow provided supplies, technology and expert assistance to the investigations. Reuters has reached out to Golushko for comment. A colleague from a veteran intelligence group told Reuters that Golushko, now 85, was in poor health and unable to answer questions. Reuters was unable to contact Pugach and could not independently confirm Golushko’s account. Secret service officers working at Chernobyl officially became part of Ukraine’s security apparatus in 1991 but continued to take orders from Moscow, the person with direct knowledge of the invasion plan said. “In fact, these were FSB employees,” the person said. The SBU did not respond to questions about Chernobyl or historical ties to Russian intelligence. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant is a huge facility. A giant steel structure encloses reactor No. 4, ground zero of the 1986 disaster. The plant is located just 10 kilometers from the nearest point to the border with Belarus, in a dense forest with high radiation. According to Western military analysts, Russia’s war planners saw control of Chornobyl as strategically important because it lay on the shortest route to their advance on Kyiv. The source with direct knowledge of the invasion plan said that in November 2021, Russia began sending secret intelligence agents to Ukraine, tasked with establishing contacts…
