Moscow accuses UK of training Ukrainian saboteurs to target Russian nuclear facilities

By Elena Teslova

MOSCOW (AA) - The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) on Wednesday accused the UK's special forces of training Ukrainian saboteurs to target nuclear facilities in Russia.

One of the UK-backed attack of Ukrainian saboteurs led to emergency shut down of the second unit of Kursk nuclear power plant, FSB head Aleksandr Bortnikov told a meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) intelligence chiefs in Baku, Azerbaijan.

"In August of this year, the Federal Security Service detained members of the Ukrainian sabotage and intelligence group. In the course of operational and investigative measures, it was established that the training of saboteurs and the planning of their operations were carried out by members of the special forces of the armed forces of Great Britain," he said.

The saboteurs confessed they planned carrying out sabotage against military, oil, transport and critical infrastructure facilities, as well as nuclear power plants, he said.

According to Bortnikov, Russia's Smolensk, Kursk, and Kaliningrad nuclear power plants are among the given targets, and in total more than 20 explosive devices were found and deactivated in their proximity.

"Such actions of the Ukrainian military intelligence and its British mentors should be qualified as nuclear terrorism. The question arises, is London aware of the reckless nature of the actions of its special services? And what, in the end, are these madmen counting on? After all, by their actions they transfer the terrorist threat to a higher level," he stressed.