Since 2014, Russia has been strongly developing the line of interethnic destabilization in Ukraine through the network of its human assets operating in the country. In the wider project toward general destabilization, sowing chaos on linguistic, religious, and most importantly, national grounds was seen by the Russian occupiers as the most promising effort.
Since Ukraine is a multinational country where practically every region has its own ethnic features, Russia has stepped up work in these regions through the most accessible channels, employing the most promising representatives of a particular ethnic group.
For example, as regards Odesa region, Russia acted through its assets among the Bulgarian and Romanian communities – within Ukraine, as well as in Bulgaria and Romania. In Zakarpattia (Transcarpathia), stakes were placed on ethnic Hungarians, acting with direct support of the Kremlin"s agents of influence in Hungary. Among these are members of the the pro-Russian Jobbik party.
When Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the ethnic factor was almost not involved, since Moscow hoped to quickly occupy the country without using the services of ethnic groups of influence created over the years. But now that the blitzkrieg failed, Moscow is returning to its old scenario of undermining Ukraine"s integrity from within.
In the western Ukrainian city of Uzhhorod, military counterintelligence operatives nabbed an armed sabotage and reconnaissance group, led by an FSB asset. It is believed that the team had been plotting a series of sabotage efforts.
At the same time, in Zakarpattia region, locals of Hungarian origin in the town of Berehove, have been receiving text messages, written in Ukrainian, with threats aimed against the Hungarian community. The stunt is also being supervised by Russian intelligence, as reported by Viktor Nikita, chief of the Regional State Administration.
That is, Russia has activated its dormant cells in Zakarpattia in order to destabilize the region and thereby weaken Ukraine"s resistance. And I won"t be surprised if the next stage in this plan will be the reaction of the Hungarian government, traditionally seen in Russia as a useful (obliviously or not) asset within its psyops. Such a reaction is expected to play along with the plan to further help destabilize the region from the outside.
It should be noted that Zakarpattia has been one of the favorite targets of Russian psyops, largely because it is home to a significant network of Moscow"s human assets and because there"s external support from the pro-Russian leadership in Hungary.
It should be recalled that in February 2018, two arson attempts targeted the office of the Hungarian Culture Society of Zakarpattia, KMKSZ, in Uzhhorod. This incident caused a diplomatic spat between Ukraine and Hungary, while serving in the information field as a pretext for creating a large-scale anti-Ukrainian wave, primarily formed by Russian and pro-Russian media platforms.
But thanks to the effective work of the SBU counterintelligence agency, it was proven that that the attacks were carried out by two Polish nationals, Adrian Marglewski and Tomasz Szymkowiak, members of the Falanga radical neo-Nazi group and the Strzelec group, whose leader is Bartosz Becker, a notorious Putin sympathizer and NATO critic, known for spreading fake stories about Ukrainian bloodthirsty "Banderites."
The inquiry identified phone numbers the perpetrators used for coordination, the gas station where they bought fuel for the arson attempt as they were crossing the border into Ukraine, as well as traces left by the mastermind behind the effort, leading detectives to Germany, to one of pro-Russian lobbyists, and then further to Moscow. The culprits were also told to record the arson on video and send the clip to Mikhail Prokopovich, the man standing behind the attack, in order to confirm that the job is done. Meanwhile, the plan of this classic false flag operation was to accuse "Ukrainian radicals."
At the same time, it is worth noting that some members of the pro-Russian Falanga also fought alongside Russian puppet militants in Donbas.
As for the person who ultimately set up the whole arson trick, as per Prokopovich"s testimony, it was a German neo-Nazi journalist Manuel Ochsenreiter, suspected of collaborating with the Russian intelligence who also happened to be a staffer working for the Bundestag lawmaker Markus Frohnmeier with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. The latter is known for his pro-Russian stance and participation in various local events set up by Russian intelligence agencies
According to media reports, Ochsenreiter repeatedly met with Russian far-right propaganda pundit Alexander Dugin, affiliated with Russia"s GRU military intelligence. In particular, the two cooperated at the Katehon Center, whose supervisory board chairman is another key figure for the GRU, Russian billionaire Konstantin Malofeev, known for financing "separatists" in eastern Ukraine and various anti-Ukrainian events in Eastern Europe.
To date, Russian invaders might as well launch another, covert front in Zakarpattia, where all Russian assets will be employed. It is possible that, along with the Zakarpattia project, the one in Odesa region could also be reactivated amid apparent military failures of the Russian invasion forces in the area.
Suffering defeat and humiliation at the front lines, the Russians will clearly resort to the scenario of destabilizing Ukraine from within, on interethnic grounds. And the first tests attempts are already out there.
