Kyiv arrests Kremlin ‘ideologue’ extradited from Moldova

KYIV: Ukraine has arrested a Russian-Ukrainian dual national extradited from Moldova charged with promoting the Kremlin’s invasion, Kyiv’s security service said Tuesday.
The SBU said Dmytro Chystilin — whom it called an “ideologue” of Moscow’s invasion — was charged with “high treason” and “justification” of Russia’s aggression, facing a possible life sentence.
“The SBU detained one of the Kremlin’s ideologues of the ‘special military operation’ against Ukraine,” the security service said in a statement.
It accused Chystilin of “providing assistance” to Russian special services, organizing pro-Moscow conferences in Europe and “interference in election processes in Eastern and Central Europe in favor of Moscow.”
The security service said he was arrested after an event in Moldova when he tried to return to Moscow.
An SBU spokesman, Artem Dekhtyarenko, told AFP that Moldova then extradited Chystilin to Ukraine “over the weekend.”
Dekhtyarenko said he has both Ukrainian and Russian passports.
Ukrainian prosecutors said Chystilin had acted as a Kremlin “mouthpiece” and was detained for “developing and implementing information warfare strategy against Ukraine.”
“While in Moldova, he strengthened the Kremlin’s information influence on the domestic and foreign policy of a sovereign state,” Ukraine’s prosecutor-general said in a statement.
The SBU said Chystilin had also worked as an assistant to Sergei Glazyev, a former Kremlin adviser known for his hawkish positions.
Russian state media quoted a friend of Chystilin, Igor Kaldare, as saying that the dual national was organizing a “regional security” conference in Bucharest and was arrested by Moldovan security services.