{"id":608111,"date":"2025-12-02T20:34:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T20:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/608111\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T20:34:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T20:34:15","slug":"british-military-instructor-arrested-in-ukraine-on-suspicion-of-spying-for-russia-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/608111\/","title":{"rendered":"British military instructor arrested in Ukraine on suspicion of spying for Russia | Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Ukrainian authorities have arrested a British military instructor accused of spying for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/russia\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Russia<\/a> and plotting assassinations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Ross David Cutmore, 40, from Dunfermline, was allegedly recruited by Russia\u2019s intelligence service, the FSB, to \u201ccarry out targeted killings on the territory of Ukraine\u201d between 2024 and 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The Kyiv prosecutor\u2019s office said: \u201cIn May 2025, he passed on the coordinates of the locations of Ukrainian units, photographs of the training facility and information about military personnel that could be used to identify them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cIn addition, analysis of his correspondence confirmed that he had carried out other tasks for the benefit of the Russian special services.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Cutmore was previously deployed to the Middle East with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk\/british-army\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">British army<\/a>, and arrived in Ukraine early last year to assist its militaryand later its border guard.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">According to the Times, he is the main suspect in the investigation. He was allegedly recruited by Russian intelligence officers in Odesa, southern Ukraine and was paid $6,000 if he gave confidential information regarding the location of Ukrainian military units around the city. If found guilty, Cutmore faces up to 12 years in prison.<\/p>\n<p><a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"#EmailSignup-skip-link-6\" class=\"dcr-jzxpee\">skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-rsfwa\">Sign up to This is Europe<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1xjndtj\">The most pressing stories and debates for Europeans \u2013 from identity to economics to the environment<\/p>\n<p><strong>Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on <a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" class=\"dcr-1rjy2q9\" target=\"_blank\">theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our <a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/help\/privacy-policy\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" class=\"dcr-1rjy2q9\" target=\"_blank\">Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google <a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"https:\/\/policies.google.com\/privacy\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" class=\"dcr-1rjy2q9\" target=\"_blank\">Privacy Policy<\/a> and <a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"https:\/\/policies.google.com\/terms\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" class=\"dcr-1rjy2q9\" target=\"_blank\">Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n<p id=\"EmailSignup-skip-link-6\" tabindex=\"0\" aria-label=\"after newsletter promotion\" role=\"note\" class=\"dcr-jzxpee\">after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">FSB officers reportedly approached Cutmore after he was believed to have posted \u201cadverts offering his services\u201d in different online pro-Russian social media groups. According to Ukraine\u2019s internal intelligence agency, Cutmore was sent instructions to make an explosive device, and the coordinates of a cache from which he took a pistol.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">According to Ukrainian media, Cutmore is suspected of providing weapons to kill the Ukrainian activists Demyan Hanul and Iryna Farion, as well as the MP Andriy Parubiy, who were all murdered by assassins.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Since Russia\u2019s full invasion in 2022, thousands of people have enlisted in Ukraine\u2019s armed forces after President Zelenskyy urged foreign war veterans to join and help the country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">A spokesperson for the Foreign Office said: \u201cWe are providing consular assistance to a British man who is detained in Ukraine. We remain in close contact with the Ukrainian authorities.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukrainian authorities have arrested a British military instructor accused of spying for Russia and plotting assassinations. Ross David&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[332],"class_list":{"0":"post-608111","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-russia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115651888523192888","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}