Earlier, MGB officers detained two OSCE SMM Lugansk Team members on suspicion of high treason.
“LPR security officers exposed and documented facts of U.S. secret services’ using an OSCE SMM Lugansk team representative for gathering intelligence on LPR militia units,” the press service said.
OSCE mission interpreter Petrov had built confidential relations with U.S. citizen George Levitsky, who was deputy head of the OSCE Mission Lugansk Office. George Levitsky is an army veteran who worked at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency for years, the MGB said.
“Petrov had prepared and handed over confidential summarized data on LPR People’s Militia to his U.S. supervisor. He gathered sensitive information by sounding out PR militiamen and monitoring the situation during regular contact line patrolling as an OSCE Mission member,” the press service said. A criminal case against OSCE employee Petrov was filed under LPR Criminal Code Article 335 (High Treason).
Earlier, one of the detained OSCE SMM Lugansk team employees admitted passing sensitive information to foreign secret services. The LPR MGB also recorded facts of subversive activities carried out by LPR residents as members of the OSCE SMM Lugansk team.
The OSCE SMM delegation moved out of the Hotel Slavyanskaya in Lugansk and left in an unknown direction on March 1, 2022. LPR Head Leonid Pasechnik banned the operation of the OSCE SMM in the Republic starting April 30. Pasechink said that the OSCE SMM had not contributed to the settlement of the Donbass conflict even once in the past eight years. *i*t
