The FSB has detained an employee of a military unit in the Rostov region. The woman allegedly corresponded with the GUR via Signal

In Rostov-on-Don, an employee of a military unit of the Southern Military District (SMD) was detained, who allegedly passed information to agents of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. As TASS reports with reference to the Rostov FSB department, a criminal case on high treason (Article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) has been opened.

Update: The court has arrested an employee of the Southern Military District military unit suspected of treason.

"Acting on instructions from the Ukrainian side, in January 2023, she [the detainee] joined one of the military units of the Southern Military District, where she collected various types of information about arsenals, bases, and warehouses that were part of the district. She passed the collected data to a foreign intelligence service during correspondence in a messenger," the FSB said in a statement.

The department specifically noted that the detainee maintained contact with the GUR representatives via Signal. This messenger had not previously appeared in FSB reports on the detention of treason suspects.

On August 9, users in Russia began complaining that Signal had stopped working for them; later that day, Roskomnadzor confirmed that it had blocked the messenger. The reason given for the blocking was “violation of the requirements of Russian legislation, the implementation of which is necessary to prevent the use of the messenger for terrorist and extremist purposes.”