Ukraine has captured the key organizer of an attempt to create "independent people's republics" in western Ukraine and thwarted the establishment of "governments" that Russia would recognize, the Ivano-Frankivsk branch of the Ukrainian security services wrote on its Facebook page.
The plot was first spotted by a Ukrainian online publication called Radio Svoboda. The "independent" states were to be similar to the governments Russia recognized in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions on the eastern border before the invasion in February. It had declared its initial troop movements were "peacekeepers."
Radio Svoboda found a now-deleted website that published a manifesto claiming to have been signed by "several deputies of city and regional councils of Ukraine."
It said the officials had joined the "Council of Deputies of regions of Ukraine" and called for the creation of the independent republics.
The website quoted Oleksandr Mykhailov of Russia Federal Security Service, known as the FSB, who once suggested the creation of independent republics in Ukraine. They could include "ethnic Hungarians, who would want a new relationship with the rest of Ukraine."
Similar messages have been spread across the internet.
Ukrainian publications and citizens reported the separatist messages to the security services of the Ivano-Frankivsk region, which led to the capture of a key organizer of the movement, who was not identified. He provided names, as well as copies of the manifestos, which were included in the security services' Facebook post.
It said the purpose of creating the pseudo governments was to discourage Ukraine's military defenses and morale in the western half of the country.
The captured agents were to sow distrust for the Ukrainian government by first focusing on regional leaders, such as mayors and heads of local legislatures.
Next, they were to capture administrative buildings in the regions and declare the "People's Republics," which were to be united into a new state that would be controlled by Russia.
"They planned to discredit and embarrass the regional armed forces, inspire distrust of local police forces," the statement read. "Then, the separatists would've eliminated key administrates and government officials."
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