MOSCOW, August 16 (Sputnik) - The United Kingdom's Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6, has prepared a sabotage unit of 100 Ukrainian fighters to be sent to Africa to counter Russia-Africa cooperation, a military-diplomatic source has said.
"According to information confirmed by several sources, the British intelligence service MI6 has formed and prepared for deployment to the southern continent a sabotage and punitive detachment consisting of militants of Ukrainian nationalist and neo-Nazi formations to counter the development of cooperation between African countries and Russia," the source said.
The source added that Kiev, at the request of London in July 2023, ordered that Ukraine's Security Service and the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine (GUR) "provide maximum and prompt assistance to representatives of the British intelligence MI6 and SAS special unit in the selection of 100 fighters from the Ukrainian national formations with significant combat experience on the 'eastern front.'"
The unit is planned to be sent to Africa by "a chartered civilian ship from the [Ukrainian] port of Izmail to the [Sudanese] city of Omdurman during the second half of August," the source said.
GUR officer Lt. Col. Vitaliy Prashchuk, who has experience of "successful liquidations" and participated in MI6 operations in Zimbabwe, will head the unit, the source said.
A native of the Vinnytsia Region, Prashchuk participated in combat operations in the Donetsk and Lugansk Regions in 2014-2016, as the commander of a sabotage and reconnaissance group, which had several "successful liquidations" under his belt. In 2015, he joined the 73rd Ukrainian Marine Special Operations Center and served in intelligence until 2017. He participated in joint special operations run by Ukrainian and British intelligence services in Zimbabwe.
After his discharge in 2019, he was elected to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (Ukrainian parliament) from Volodymyr Zelensky’s "Servant of the People" party. At the beginning of the Russian special military operation, he was a reserve intelligence officer.
