Oleg Kulich, the former head of the Crimean Department of the Security Service, will appear in court. According to the investigation, he worked for the Russian special services.

 This was reported by the SSU press center.

 "The Security Service and the State Bureau of Investigation submitted to the court an indictment on treason and other crimes against the former head of the Main Directorate of the SSU in Crimea Oleg Kulinich, who, according to the investigation, acted in favor of the aggressor country," the message reads.

 In particular, based on the collected evidence, he is charged under 5 articles of the Criminal Code:

 Part 1 of Art. 111 (treason);

 Part 3 of Art. 255 (creation, management of a criminal community or criminal organization, as well as participation in it);

 Part 5 of Art. 407 (voluntarily leaving a military unit or place of service);

 Part 4 of Art. 410 (theft, misappropriation, extortion by a military serviceman of weapons, military supplies, explosive or other combat substances, means of transportation, military and special equipment or other military property, as well as taking possession of them by abuse of official position);

 Part 1 of Art. 263 (illegal handling of weapons, ammunition or explosives).

 The trial may be held in closed session

 This was announced by the communications advisor of the State Bureau of Investigation, Tetyana Sapyan, on the air of the telethon.

 "Kulinich held a rather high position. And you and I understand that the issue of the criminal proceedings of the pre-trial investigation, which concerns his treason, may also relate to state secrets. Therefore, I assume, I do not say one hundred percent, but I assume that with a high probability this trial will continue in closed mode," she said.

 The case of Kulinich

 We will remind that the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed Oleh Kulinich from the position of head of the SSU department in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea back in March 2022. And on July 16, 2022, the Security Service of Ukraine and the State Bureau of Investigation detained Kulinich on suspicion of treason.

He was charged with treason (Part 1 of Article 111 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine) and creation of a criminal organization (Part 3 of Article 255 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). After that, a preventive measure was chosen for Kulinich - detention. He is still under arrest.

 In the course of the investigation, the law enforcement officers found that Kulinich was involved in secret cooperation by representatives of the FSB of the Russian Federation and received the operational pseudonym "Kotygoroshko".

 On the instructions of the FSB, ex-Deputy Secretary of the NSDC Volodymyr Sivkovich and former Head of the Administration of the President of Ukraine Andriy Klyuev, who have been hiding from justice in Moscow since 2014, created a so-called "political office" to monitor the activities of influential Ukrainian politicians, high-ranking officials and law enforcement officers, search for agents of influence in their environment to control political processes in Ukrainian society.

 Thus, in July 2022, the SSU informed Volodymyr Sivkovich and three FSB employees of espionage suspicion of treason.

 It was established that Sivkovych, through proxies, controls a number of firms and enterprises in Ukraine, which are used to cover the activities of members of a criminal organization, as well as to finance the persons who facilitate them.

 The investigation also established that Kulinich was a confidant of Volodymyr Sivkovich. He actively cooperated with the "political office" created by the FSB and carried out the instructions of the curators to introduce "his people" to various state and law enforcement agencies, conduct intelligence and subversive activities against Ukraine, espionage, and incite Ukrainian citizens to treason.

 In particular, Kulinich knew in advance about Russia's plans to launch an attack from the temporarily occupied Crimea on the mainland of Ukraine, but deliberately hid this information and forbade sending any documentation on this matter to the SBU.

 In the first hours of the invasion, he deliberately blocked any attempts to inform the leadership of the SSU and society about the real situation in the region, did not take any measures to protect state sovereignty, gave instructions to personnel to leave the place of service, later issued staff weapons to people who had nothing to do with SBU

 In addition, Kulinich himself left the place of permanent deployment and left for Kyiv on February 24. In one of the apartments where Oleg Kulinich lived, investigators found a cache of weapons and his documents from his service in the KGB of the USSR.