{"id":189261,"date":"2023-10-03T08:46:15","date_gmt":"2023-10-03T12:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=189261"},"modified":"2023-10-03T08:49:50","modified_gmt":"2023-10-03T12:49:50","slug":"russia-charges-ukrainian-commanders-with-terrorism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=189261","title":{"rendered":"

Russia charges Ukrainian commanders with terrorism<\/b><\/h1>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spy chief Kirill Budanov and three others have been accused of launching drone attacks on civilian targets in Russia<\/h2>\n
\"Russia<\/picture><\/div>\n
\n
FILE PHOTO: Kirill Budanov, the head of the Chief Intelligence Directorate (GUR)
\nof the Ukrainian Defense Ministry\u00a0<\/span>\u00a9\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0Mustafa Ciftci \/ Anadolu Agency via Getty Images<\/span><\/h5>\n<\/div>\n

RT.com<\/p>\n

READ HERE:\u00a0 The Russian Investigative Committee has identified four senior Ukrainian military officials as the masterminds of over 100\u00a0\u201cterrorist attacks\u201d<\/em>\u00a0involving drones targeting civilian infrastructure.<\/p>\n

In a statement on Tuesday, the agency said it has collected enough evidence to charge the four commanders in absentia with terrorism-related crimes. Russia will seek the arrests of the suspects, it said.<\/p>\n

The committee named Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kirill Budanov, the commanders of the Air Force and the Navy, Nikolay Oleshchuk and Aleksey Neizhapa, as well as the commander of the 383rd drone regiment of the Air Force, Sergey Purdenyuk, as the culprits. Their alleged offenses took place between April 2022 and September 2023.<\/p>\n

Russian officials regularly accuse Kiev of launching fixed-wing kamikaze drones at targets inside Russia. Senior Ukrainian officials publicly call those drones\u00a0\u201cunidentified,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0but do little to deny their country\u2019s responsibility for the attacks.<\/p>\n

The semi-secret drone program was detailed in August by the British magazine The Economist. It explained how competing drone developers sometimes conduct operations that\u00a0\u201cappear to be PR projects designed to bring a prototype to the attention of procurement bosses, rather than having military value.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

There is also an aspect of psychological warfare in delivering\u00a0\u201cheadline-making strikes\u201d<\/em>\u00a0on civilian targets such as Moscow\u2019s financial center, the article said.<\/p>\n

Budanov, who is arguably the most media-engaged official among the four Ukrainians charged, told the same outlet last month that his agency sought to disrupt the Russian economy, including by forcing airports in Moscow and St. Petersburg to close during drone raids. He claimed the strikes caused\u00a0\u201czero\u201d<\/em>\u00a0civilian casualties in Russia, contrary to local reports.<\/p>\n

___
\nhttps:\/\/www.rt.com\/russia\/583939-ukrainian-commanders-terrorism-charges\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spy chief Kirill Budanov and three others have been accused of launching drone attacks on civilian targets in Russia FILE PHOTO: Kirill Budanov, the head of the Chief Intelligence Directorate (GUR) of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry\u00a0\u00a9\u00a0\u00a0Mustafa Ciftci \/ Anadolu Agency … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=189261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189261\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=189261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=189261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=189261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}