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A British army veteran turned volunteer military instructor has been arrested in Ukraine on suspicion of spying for Moscow and seeking to carry out assassinations in exchange for money.
Ross David Cutmore was detained by Ukraine’s state security service, the SBU, in October for allegedly securing firearms and ammunition from Russia’s FSB intelligence service to “carry out targeted killings on the territory of Ukraine”, Ukrainian intelligence officials said on Tuesday.
Cutmore has been accused of violating Ukrainian martial law by disseminating information about the location of Ukraine’s armed forces or other military formations.
He faces a prison sentence of up to 12 years and the confiscation of personal property if convicted.
Cutmore had arrived in Kyiv in early 2024 to work as an instructor with Ukraine’s military, the officials said, adding that he had military experience from service in the British Army and a stint in the Middle East.
A few months later, he ceased this work and offered his services to Russian intelligence agencies in exchange for money, according to the SBU. “To do this, he left ads in various pro-Kremlin internet groups,” the agency said.
The SBU alleged that an officer from the FSB, Russia’s federal security service, had contacted Cutmore and begun making plans to undermine Ukraine’s military. It accused him of providing Russia with information about foreign instructors working in the Ukrainian armed forces.
Thousands of foreigners, including many with previous military experience in their home countries, have travelled to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a public plea for veterans to make their way to Kyiv in the early days of the war.
The SBU alleged that Cutmore had also passed coordinates of military training centres in southern Ukraine, where he instructed newly mobilised troops, so that Russia could strike the bases.
Russian forces have targeted numerous Ukrainian training bases throughout the war with missiles and drones, killing scores of troops.
Cutmore’s Russian handlers had also sent him instructions for making an improvised explosive device, as well as the coordinates of the cache from which he took a pistol with two loaded magazines, the SBU said.
Counter-intelligence officers from the agency detained Cutmore at his residence in Kyiv before he was able to carry out the task, the agency added.
The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the UK Ministry of Defence did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The FSB, and a lawyer for Cutmore, could not immediately be reached for comment.
Additional reporting by Robert Wright in London and Anastasia Stognei in Berlin
