Security Service of Ukraine possesses audio records of Krasnov’s conversations with his Russian supervisor

Kyiv, March 3, 2016. Public prosecution investigators incriminated head of the civilian corps Azov-Krym Stanislav Krasnov with having committed treason. The court could not impose a pre-trial restrain on him. “Krasnov has been maintaining communication with an officer of Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian Federation (GRU) Konstantin Goloskokov since 2014. He has been working under cover of so-called antifascist movement “Nashi” (eng. “Ours”) which is actively used by Russian special services to conduct anti-Ukrainian activity,” said Oleksandr Tkachuk, chief of staff for the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) at a press briefing at Ukraine Crisis Media Center.

Tkachuk stated that the SBU possesses audio records of talks between Krasnov and Goloskokov. Besides that, the records reveal that the latter has an agent network on the territory of eastern and southern Ukraine. The GRU officer Mariya Koleda directly participated in disturbances instigated in the east and the south of the country in April 2014. The SBU states that after being detained by the Ukrainian law enforcement authorities Koleda said Krasnov gave her weapons according to Goloskokov’s instructions.

According to Tkachuk, Sloviansk was seized by militants, following which Krasnov informed his Russian supervisors of a group of activists who set out to the town in order to help Ukrainian law enforcement officers to liberate the town. “Krasnov provides detailed information on the number of people and their equipment, providing advice on what to do with them,” said Tkachuk. He emphasized that many activists were ambushed at that time.

The SBU representative told that experts examined the hard disk of Krasnov’s computer and found his correspondence with Goloskokov. Particularly, it related to the transportation of explosives, a place of setting a weapons cache and the place of residence of command and staff of Azov battalion, leaders of Crimean blockade and Crimean Tatars activists in the east of Ukraine.