The arrest is significant as it is one of the first by the FSB alleged Ukrainian spy since the start of the war on 24 February. The Kremlin has ordered its intelligence service and police to step up their efforts to apprehend “traitors” and spies as the war escalates into a much larger-than-expected campaign. “While trying to obtain information about military personnel who took part in a special operation of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, the suspect was arrested in the city of Moscow,” the FSB said in a press release. Later, a video appeared in the pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia with the arrest and subsequent interrogation of “The Baby”. The video begins with three FSB officers handcuffing a bearded man on a snowy street in Moscow. Another FSB officer goes to the prone man, raises his head to the camera and demands that he find out his nationality. “Ukrainian,” the man replies. The video then ends in a naked room and focuses on the light man, who now appears to have a cut on the right side of his eye. He leans forward and answers his interrogator’s questions. “What nickname were you given?” says the investigator. “The baby,” the man replies. “And what other special assignments did you discuss with members of the Ukrainian security service?” “Search for information about today’s … opposition journalists in the territory of the Russian Federation,” he replies. The video continues for about another minute with “The Baby” giving some more vague details about its operations in Russia. It is not clear why the video appeared on Izvestia’s website, but the FSB has been in the back since the beginning of the war. Vladimir Putin accused the FSB of providing him with misinformation that led him to believe that Russian troops would be welcome in Ukraine as liberators and that the government would fall in a few days. Instead, the invasion has turned into a war of attrition with Russia suffering heavy losses.
