SBU

Ukraine's security service said Monday it had detained an informer accused of helping Russia plot an attack on President Volodymyr Zelensky as he visited a flood-hit region.

The SBU security service said the detained woman was gathering intelligence to try to find out Zelensky's itinerary ahead of his visit to the southern Mykolaiv region.

Ukraine's intelligence services, the SBU, has named a Moldovan, Radu "Rodion" Donciu, aged 43, as a mercenary who has fought for the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, and in Syria, with the Russian-led private company, Wagner.

Kyiv security services on May 29 said they were conducting searches in the Ukrainian offices of the popular Russian internet company Yandex as part of a treason probe.

"The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) is conducting searches in the offices of the subsidiary of the Russian company Yandex in Kiev and Odessa", SBU spokeswoman Olena Gitlyanska wrote on her Facebook page.

Action movie legend Steven Seagal has been barred from Ukraine and marked a “threat to national security” over his cosy friendship with Vladimir Putin. The Hollywood veteran, banned by Ukranian’s security service, the SBU, is the second of Putin’s celebrity friends to be blacklisted by the former Soviet state – following French actor Gerard Depardieu.