SBU busts anti-vax group, says it plotted violence under Russia’s oversight

by Illia PonomarenkoNovember 16, 2021 9:48 pm

The Security Service of Ukraine on Nov. 16 said the plotters worked toward “the violent dismantling of the country’s constitutional order” under the guise of anti-vaccination activism.

The SBU operatives said they found written evidence that the plotters were looking for weapons and accomplices to take over certain regions.

Ukrainska Pravda reported that the group’s leader Ostap Stakhiv, a well-known anti-vaccination activist in Lviv, was indicted.

Illia Ponomarenko

Defense reporter

Illia Ponomarenko is the defense and security reporter at the Kyiv Independent. He has reported about the war in eastern Ukraine since the conflict’s earliest days. He covers national security issues, as well as military technologies, production, and defense reforms in Ukraine. Besides, he gets deployed to the war zone of Donbas with Ukrainian combat formations. He has also had deployments to Palestine and the Democratic Republic of the Congo as an embedded reporter with UN peacekeeping forces. Illia won the Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellowship and was selected to work as USA Today's guest reporter at the U.S. Department of Defense.

Tags: Covid-19

Independent journalism
for an independent Ukraine

Independence is an expensive currency. Both Ukraine and its journalists are paying a high price to preserve its independence. Support Ukraine's trusted journalism in its darkest hour.