Who Was Spied On In Ukraine By The "Belarusian Journalist" Who Worked For The KGB

The history of "Mata Hari" of Minsk.

"I am very good at extracting information... I am better suited to the role of an undercover spy as a journalist...". Such words Ukrainians heard in a video published by the Security Service of Ukraine with details of conversations between journalist Inna Kardash, who worked for a number of well-known publications - from the TV channel "112 Ukraine" to the agency "Interfax-Ukraine" - and her handlers from the security agencies of Belarus, writes unian.net.

The Security Service of Ukraine has detained a Belarusian spy

These and other dialogues, as well as photos and videos documented by the Security Service of Ukraine (Department for Protection of National Statehood) together with the own security unit of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, are the result of a multi-stage special operation to unmask and detain a deep-covered spy.

According to Ukrainian security agencies, she worked for the State Security Committee of the Republic of Belarus since at least 2015 and was a "shadow" participant in the process of accusations of espionage against former UNIAN agency's own correspondent in Belarus, employee of "Ukrainian Radio" Pavel Sharoyko (the journalist was detained in Minsk on October 25, 2017 and sentenced to eight years in prison), and since 2020 was infiltrated into the Ukrainian media community and carried out specific assignments in Kiev.

A strange "friendship"

Inna's story is, in fact, the story of many people born in the early 1990s. Poor childhood, life on the outskirts of Minsk, always working mom, older sister with whom she had to share a room, toys and even clothes. Like all her peers, Inna, obviously, wanted a better life.

She graduated from high school, college, entered the Belarusian State University of Economics. However, the economic specialty, it seems, was not to her liking. Therefore, after graduating in Belarus, she continued her studies at the European Humanities University in Vilnius, specializing in "Journalism: New Media".

The girl did not live in Lithuania permanently, but came there from time to time - for sessions and media events, where she gained acquaintances that could be useful to her in the future.

At the same time - and this is the first strange moment - a girl previously unknown in a rather small Belarusian media space (who in her twenties worked only in companies connected with the network of the Belarusian media), and in opposition. Among them are BelPAN agency and tut.by, which were later recognized by the Belarusian regime as "extremist" and stopped their work. The strange thing is that at the same time she shoots stories for the NTV TV channel and for the Belarusian branch of the Russian propaganda resource Sputnik. As they say, both yours and ours.

The second interesting moment

"Star" is lit by a certain Vasily Semashko, who becomes the discoverer of the student's "talents" and guides her into the local (and not only) journalistic world.

According to unian.net in the Ukrainian security services, Semashko has an ambiguous reputation in Belarus.

On the one hand, he is a well-known journalist, photographer, cameraman, cooperating with various media, writes and shoots good stories.

On the other hand, he has "black spots" in his biography in the form of several criminal cases and serving sentences in prison: once - for hooliganism, the second - for theft.

On the one hand, he works in the opposition to the Lukashenko regime media. On the other hand, he makes reports for Russian TV channels (often together with Inna Kardash) and travels through Russia to the occupied territories of Ukraine: smuggles contraband under the guise of "humanitarian aid" and covers the life of the so-called "Lugansk People's Republic" and "Donetsk People's Republic" as a Russian propagandist.

On the one hand - cooperates with a Ukrainian TV channel (however, it is a resource of Russian President Vladimir Putin's cousin, an associate of fugitive Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych Viktor Medvedchuk), where Inna Kardash starts her career as a "Ukrainian journalist". On the other hand, it frames Ukrainian journalist Pavel Sharoyko under an article on espionage.

Spy Passion

It was Vasyl Semashko (Inna Kardash is said to have been in the know as well) who in 2017 slips Sharoyko an allegedly secret Russian document. And, as many Belarusian and Ukrainian media outlets wrote about it, it happened on the order of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation "by the hands" of the State Security Committee of the Republic of Belarus.

Sharoika's detention occurred immediately after his meeting with Semashko - the special services knew who and what to go to. By the way, a similar situation happened with the BelPAN agency: some of Semashko's Belarusian colleagues hint that it was closed down by the State Security Committee of Belarus after he came to work there, and many of its employees were compromised.

"Semashko made no secret of the fact that he maintained a working relationship with Valery Bobyshev, who at the time served as head of one of the departments of the Operational and Analytical Center under the ruler of the Republic of Belarus," Belpravda wrote.

While Pavel Sharoyko was sentenced to eight years in a penal colony formally only for intentions, while Semashko, who allegedly betrayed his homeland by handing over a "secret document," and who, logically, should have been part of the "agent network," was released. Moreover, he became a witness for the prosecution in court and then continued his journalistic activities, cooperating with both Russian propagandists and the Ukrainian media.

And that's not all. Later Semashko quietly opens his own media (which is impossible in Belarus without direct patronage of the special services), discusses in social networks about real and fake spies, criticizing with impunity Alexander Lukashenko's confessions about exposing one of them, and continues to "nurture" the future "spy" Inna Kardash.

In addition, if we believe the information portal of the center "Peacemaker", at least once he had an experience of illegal transfer of citizens of the Russian Federation to Ukraine through the Belarusian-Ukrainian border, which he even bragged about in the Russian media.

Moving to Ukraine

After covering the protests in Belarus in 2020, Inna Kardash, under the guise of "fear of reprisals" (it is quite possible that this cover-up was also organized by Semashko together with his "friends" in the Belarusian and Russian security services) legally and without problems moved to Ukraine.

At the same time, her colleagues - Belarusian journalists Ksenia Chindarova and Larisa Shchiryakova - said that they were forced to leave the country under the pressure of threats, arrests, trials and constant psychological pressure from the security services.

Damaging ambitions

Inna also did not stay on the sidelines in Kiev for long. Here her acquaintances from the time of her studies in Vilnius played a role. According to war correspondent Andriy Tsaplienko, she was close to the late head of the Interfax-Ukraine news agency Alexander Martynenko, who took her under his wing.

As a journalist, she was accredited to various events with the participation of top officials of the Ukrainian state, attended press conferences of the president, attended international forums such as the Munich Security Conference, received invitations to events of foreign embassies in Ukraine (intelligence services documented that she was particularly interested in contacts with Chinese diplomats, including in Belarus, trying to "introduce" representatives of the Celestial Empire there with Vasil Kocharyan, who was a member of the Ukrainian government.

"Accordingly, she was able to obtain non-public information, in particular from offreaks to which the agency was invited," Tsaplienko wrote.

Also, in his opinion, one of the tasks that Kardash was set by her handlers was employment in the International Legions "in order to collect information about Belarusian volunteers or to discredit the international volunteer movement."... The grounds for this version are also contained in the records made public by the Security Service of Ukraine. In particular, where Inna tries to recruit a fighter from the Belarusian regiment named after Kastus Kalinovsky (as a result, last year she even married a representative of this military formation).

However, the journalist has attracted special attention of the Ukrainian security services, and since 2023 she has been under close surveillance. In particular, the Department for Protection of National Statehood of the SBU managed to record her travel abroad for direct contact with her Belarusian handler on the "neutral" territory - in one of the countries of the European Union - for the purpose of additional briefing. To do this, Inna Kardash also received comprehensive instructions: to come up with a plausible reason for the trip (the woman made it ostensibly for a medical examination), to buy a new smartphone, "disposable" SIM card, and to get rid of the gadget before returning to Ukraine. On the recordings made public by the SBU, Inna's handler says: "Reset it to factory settings and accidentally just smash it."

Also on the recorded conversations, the handler promises her a reward - three thousand euros monthly - and assures her that the decision on her work is made by "the first person in our country," alluding to Alexander Lukashenko, and also guarantees her safety on behalf of the Belarusian dictator.

What kind of "work" the "undercover" journalist was supposed to do after her return to Kiev, it is easy to guess from her further actions. She almost immediately tried to get a job in one of the headquarters units of the military intelligence ... At the same time on the SBU records she also boasted: "...Sooner or later I realized that I would have a polygraph. And I am ready for it"...

Inna recorded conversations of her colleagues, photographed screens of notebooks with documents "for official use only", and in conversations with her handlers hinted that Ukraine was already cramped and it was worth to transfer such a valuable agent to another place. One of the promising destinations for Inna Kardash's infiltration, as suspected by the intelligence services, was China: earlier the woman planned a year-long (!) trip there.

***

When Inna Kardash was detained, a smartphone and a voice recorder were seized from her, on which she recorded classified information from the Main Intelligence Directorate. According to the Office of the Prosecutor General, on January 22, the Shevchenkovsky District Court of Kyiv arrested her and elected a measure of restraint in the form of detention without the right to bail.

Investigators of the Security Service of Ukraine informed her of suspicion under part one of Article 114 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (espionage). The maximum sanction under this article is 15 years' imprisonment with confiscation of property. According to the special services, she will probably be exchanged for Ukrainians illegally detained in Belarus and Russia.

You can support the website Charter97.org

MULTI-CURRENCY ACCOUNT FOR ASSISTANCE:

Bank's name: Bank Millennium S.A.
Address: ul. Stanislawa Zaryna, 2A, 02-593, Warszawa
IBAN: PL97116022020000000216711123
SWIFT: BIGBPLPW
Name of the account holder: Fundacja “KARTA ‘97”
Purpose/title of payment: Donation for statuary aims

You can contact us by the e-mail charter97@gmail.com