Russian-Ukrainian relations, increasingly tense since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, plummeted to a new low after Russia’s forcible absorption of the Crimean peninsula in March 2014 and subsequent invasion of the Donbas. On March 18, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Sevastopol, home of the country’s Black Sea Fleet, and delivered a rousing patriotic speech commemorating the sixth anniversary of Russia’s “reunification” with Crimea (Kremlin.ru, March 18). The following day, likely not coincidentally, the Security Service of Ukraine (known as the SBU) agents arrested a Ukrainian from Mykolayiv on espionage charges of seeking information on advanced Ukrainian naval technology to sell to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) (Ssu.gov.ua, March 19).
It is not surprising that the SBU would uncover a spy for Russia in Mykolayiv, which for decades housed the most advanced shipyards in the Soviet Union. Interestingly, Mr. Putin had obliquely addressed the issue of purported Russian espionage in his March 18 Sevastopol address. The Kremlin leader asserted that, after Russia’s acquisition of Crimea, Western powers had been “provoking a spy mania”; however, he insisted, “there has not been nor will there be any [Russian] spying. Unfortunately, we are seeing this, spy mania, in certain partner countries…” (Kremlin.ru, March 18). The recent SBU operation, nevertheless, seems to belie Mr. Putin’s pious assertions.