Russian National Guard servicemen together with Lugansk People’s Republic police and military counterintelligence officers detained 16 Kiev abettors in the Troitskoye district and neighboring settlements.    “Special task force officers of Russia’s National Guard jointly with LPR police and counterintelligence officers inspected some 90 households in the LPR’s Troitskoye district checking IDs of 170 citizens; of those, 16 were detained for collaborating with the Ukrainian army,” the Russian National Guard press service reported.   Special task force personnel seized “firearms, grenades, unmanned aerial vehicles, quadcopters, photo equipment for monitoring troop movement and data storage devices containing coordinates of Russian troops concentration areas.”   On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a special military operation to protect Donbass residents from Ukrainian aggression. Prior to that, LPR and DPR Heads Leonid Pasechnik and Denis Pushilin asked the Russian leader to provide military assistance. On July 3, the LPR militia and Russian armed forces fully liberated the LPR territory from Ukrainian armed formations.   The Ukrainian government launched the so-called anti-terrorist operation against Donbass in April 2014.  The peace talks that began soon thereafter failed to reach tangible results due to Kiev’s position to settle the conflict by force.   The Lugansk People’s Republic became a part of Russia on September 30, 2022 following the unification referendum.*i*v