Ukraine Detains Ex-Police Officer Suspected Of Spying For Russia

Ukraine's security service (SBU) says a former police officer has been detained in the southern region of Zaporizhzhya on suspicion of spying for Russia.

In a statement on July 31, the SBU said that the ex-officer, whose name was not disclosed, "collected data on the social, political, and economic situation in Zaporizhzhya and regularly visited Crimea" following Russia's seizure of the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula in 2014.

In Crimea, the suspect "handed the collected data to a representative" of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB)," it said.

The announcement comes after the SBU said on July 18 that it had arrested an unidentified former police officer in the central Ukrainian region of Poltava on similar charges.

Russia seized and annexed Crimea in March 2014 after Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was pushed from power by the pro-European Maidan protest movement the previous month.

Moscow has also fomented unrest and backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, where more than 13,000 people have been killed in the ensuing conflict since April 2014.