Russian intelligence calls for the arrest of two Ukrainian ministers
Russian intelligence – the FSB, ex-KGB – is calling for the arrest of two Ukrainian ministers. The two officials are accused, according to Russian media, of having violated the territorial integrity of Russia. “FSB investigators asked […] to order in absentia the arrest of the Minister for the Reintegration of the territories not under the control of Ukraine, Irina Vereshchuk, and of the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs” Emin Djaparova, indicates the Lefortovo court in Moscow .
This request for arrest in absentia has above all a symbolic dimension. The court would not specify the reason given by the Russian security services, but according to the state news agency Tass, the two ministers are accused of violating the territorial integrity of Russia. Moscow annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 2014, then claimed in September 2022 the annexation of four other regions of Ukraine that it does not fully control.
Ukrainian officials, despite the fighting, are moving across Ukraine, including the four regions that Moscow has claimed since late September. Irina Vereshchuk, for example, recently visited Kherson, capital of the eponymous southern region that Ukrainian forces took over in November, inflicting a new setback on Russia.
Emine Djaparova is a Crimean Tatar, and as such, as number two in Ukrainian diplomacy, promotes the end of the Russian occupation of this Ukrainian peninsula. The international community has overwhelmingly rejected Russian claims, denounced its offensive once morest Ukraine, and even Moscow’s allies are calling for respect for Ukrainian territorial integrity.