Daily Times

Russia said Monday it had conducted raids across the country on over 100 supporters of a neo-Nazi youth group it claimed was directed by Ukraine, as tensions soar over Kiev’s conflict with pro-Moscow separatists.

The FSB domestic intelligence agency said in a statement that it had conducted searches and probes against “106 supporters of the Ukrainian neo-Nazi youth group MKU”.

The FSB said the MKU was founded by a Ukrainian citizen named YegorKrasnov, claiming he was “operating under the auspices of the Ukrainian security services”.

Krasnov was instructing the MKU’s supporters to “commit terrorist acts and mass killings”, the FSB claimed, adding that its agents had seized pistols, rifles, machine guns and tear gas during their raids.

The FSB has conducted several raids on the MKU group this year, detaining around 60 people, Russia’s state news agency TASS reported Monday.

The FSB’s announcement came less than two weeks after the security service said it had detained three Ukrainian spies, including one who had allegedly been planning a bombing.

Ukraine’s SBU security service at the time denied the incident, saying the accusation was “fake” and part of a “hybrid war effort”.

On Monday, the SBU said in a statement sent to AFP that the FSB’s latest announcement was part of a “coordinated information campaign” against Ukraine.

Separately, a Ukrainian law enforcement official told AFP on condition of anonymity that the MKU exists in Ukraine but is “no longer active”.

The official said Krasnov had been arrested in January 2020 and was under investigation for a series of armed attacks as well as an assassination attempt on the grounds of racial, national and religious intolerance.

Although the organisation suspended its activities after Krasnov’s arrest, it recently began trying to recruit new members, the official added.

Ukraine has been locked in a simmering conflict with pro-Russia separatists since 2014, when Moscow annexed the Crimean peninsula.

Russia has massed around 100,000 troops near Ukraine, raising new fears of a possible invasion.