SBU detained Chinese spies who were collecting technologies for the production of Neptune anti-ship missiles

Counterintelligence of the Security Service of Ukraine detained two citizens of the People’s Republic of China in Kyiv.

As the SBU reported, the citizens of the People’s Republic of China tried to illegally export to China secret documentation regarding the Ukrainian missile complex RK-360 “Neptune”.

This is a unique weapon of the Defense Forces of Ukraine, which is designed to fire at all types of combat and landing ships. It was from the “Neptune” that the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the missile cruiser “Moscow”, was destroyed.

As the investigation established, one of the Chinese spies is a 24-year-old former student of one of the Kiev technical universities. He remained in Kyiv after he was expelled in 2023 for academic failure.

Another person involved is his father, who permanently resided in the People’s Republic of China, but periodically visited Ukraine to personally coordinate his son’s intelligence work.

According to the case materials, the former Chinese student was supposed to obtain technical documentation for the production of Ukrainian “Neptunes”. To do this, he tried to recruit a Ukrainian citizen who is related to the development of the latest weapons of the Defense Forces.

The SBU counterintelligence exposed the spy at the initial stage of his intelligence activity and detained him “red-handed” while transferring secret documents to him. The next stage was to detain his father, who was supposed to transfer secret information to the special services of the PRC.

During the searches, phones with evidence of their correspondence with each other, where they coordinate their espionage activities, were seized from both suspects.

Based on the collected evidence, the Security Service investigators informed the detainees of suspicion under Part 1 of Article 114 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (espionage). The suspects face up to 15 years in prison with confiscation of property.

USM previously reported that the SBU detained a Russian agent who was preparing an attack on the Neptune anti-ship complexes.