Vladimir Putin humiliated as Ukrainian spies con Russia out of £370,000 | World | News
A daring Ukrainian military operation saw its security services defraud Russia of £370,000. In a morale-boosting piece of propaganda, Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) confirmed the success of an operation designed to fool the Kremlin into believing they had killed a Russian dissident.
Denis Kapustin, one of the most prominent anti-Putin Russians fighting on behalf of Ukraine, has had a £370,000 bounty on his head after he founded the pro-Ukrainian Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK) in 2022. The group made headlines throughout the war after launching cross-border attacks in Russia’s Belgorod and Kursk regions and humiliating Russian officials.
Russia believed they had successfully killed Mr. Kaputsin in a drone strike on December 27 and, incredibly, paid the grand bounty after news of his death broke.
RDK went so far as to confirm the death, posting on Telegram: “We will definitely take revenge, Denis. Your legacy lives on.”
But all was not as it seemed, and on New Year’s Day HUR published a video showing Mr. Kaputsin looking fit and healthy; General Kyrylo Budan greeted him with a wry smile, “welcome back to life.”
He added: “First of all, Mr. Denis, I congratulate you on your return to life. This is always pleasing. I am glad that the money allocated for your assassination was used to support our struggle.”
HUR confirmed that during the operation they claimed the reward, with money to be used to finance Ukraine’s war effort to defeat Putin’s forces.
The mission is the latest success story for Ukraine’s intelligence services, which have regularly used deception and double agents to help their fight against Russia since the start of the war.
In one case in November, Ukrainian intelligence used Russian agents to undermine them by accepting FSB-related sabotage work for a fee.
In one case, a Ukrainian double agent took on the task of making a bomb, passing on a fake device made with flour, which failed, leading to the arrest of the Russian saboteur.
Ukraine has acknowledged killing senior Russian officials and is suspected of several other attacks, including the December bombing of a Russian general after a device exploded under a car in Moscow.
The propaganda victory came after a Ukrainian drone strike killed 24 people and injured at least 50 others as they were celebrating the new year in a Russian-occupied village in Ukraine’s Kherson region.
By Thursday, three drones had struck a cafe and hotel in the Black Sea resort town of Khorly, according to Vladimir Saldo, the region’s Moscow-based leader, as tensions between the two countries continued to rise despite diplomats welcoming productive peace talks.
One of the drones was carrying a flammable mixture and caused the fire, he said in a statement on Telegram.
Ukrainian officials did not immediately comment on the alleged strike.
The attack was condemned by many Russian officials. Valentina Matviyenko, speaker of the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament, said that the attack “strengthened” Russia’s determination to quickly achieve its goals in the almost four-year-long occupation of Ukraine.
Ms. Matviyenko said the strike “once again demonstrated the correctness of our initial demands.”
