A British military instructor has been apprehended in Ukraine amid allegations of secretly collaborating with Russian operatives to facilitate high-profile assassinations using firearms.

The individual, who arrived in Ukraine earlier this year to provide training to Ukrainian forces, is currently under investigation, according to Kyiv’s SBU security service.

His detention was successfully executed with assistance from British intelligence agencies, as revealed by sources within Kyiv’s intelligence community.

Reports suggest the suspect is a man from Scotland in his early 40s, with a background in the British Army, including deployments in the Middle East.

The SBU has accused him of receiving weapons and ammunition from Russian special services, purportedly to conduct targeted killings within Ukraine’s borders.

He is accused of ‘reconnaissance and sabotage activities’ and bringing weapons into the country for killings by Russian agents.

In particular, he is suspected of providing firearms used to kill former Ukrainian parliament speaker Andriy Parubiy, a key anti-Russian figure, according to Ukrainian Pravda which cited intelligence sources.

Parubiy was assassinated in Lviv – shot dead in broad daylight – on August 30, 2025.

He is suspected of providing firearms used to kill former Ukrainian parliament speaker Andriy Parubiy, a key anti-Russian figure, according to Ukrainian Pravda which cited intelligence sources

The third assassination linked to the British military trainer was Demyan Hanul, 31, a Ukrainian nationalist campaigner wanted by Russia, who was gunned down in Odesa in March

He was earlier secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine.

The killing sparked wide shock and condemnation across Ukraine – but was celebrated by hardline Russian war fanatics.

The British instructor is also suspected of providing firearms for the murder of Ukrainian nationalist and former MP Irina Farion, 60, who infuriated Moscow was shot and killed in her home city Lviv.

A professor, she died in July 2025 after she was rushed to hospital after being shot in the head by a gunman.

The third assassination linked to the British military trainer was Demyan Hanul, 31, a Ukrainian nationalist campaigner wanted by Russia, who was gunned down in Odesa in March.

He was shot twice with a short-barrelled gun as he walked on a street in the Black Sea port, said reports at the time.

An SBU source said: ‘[The suspect] is currently detained and in custody, and the investigation is ongoing.’

Ukrainian Pravda said: ‘The SBU counterintelligence service, in cooperation with British special services, exposed [the suspect], a British citizen who, on behalf of Russian special services, carried out reconnaissance and sabotage activities in Ukraine in 2024-2025.’

He is believed to be from Dunfermline, but also to have lived in Rosyth.

Four people were killed and 40 wounded in a Russian missile attack on the eastern-central Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Monday.

Servicemen of the 28th Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine attend a military exercise between combat missions, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kharkiv region, Ukraine December 1, 2025

A Russian solider walks through Pokrovsk as the Kremlin announced that Moscow’s forces had taken control of the city in the Donetsk region and Vovchansk in the Kharkiv region on December 2, 2025

Eleven of those injured in the strike were in a serious condition.

The attack came amid an intensified diplomatic push to end the nearly four-year war, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visiting Paris on Monday, a day after his team held talks with U.S. officials.

Ukraine’s emergency services said car service stations, other businesses, an office building and 49 cars were all damaged in the attack.

Vitalii Kovalenko was working in his car repair shop when the missile hit.

‘Everyone fell to the floor, then we started to figure out where the employees were. I ran upstairs and saw that one guy was fine, but he was a bit covered in shrapnel,’ he said, adding that luckily all his employees were alive.

Pictures posted on Telegram showed firefighters working at the site of the strike and emergency services workers evacuating people on stretchers as well as a body in a black bag.

The industrial city of Dnipro and the surrounding region have faced repeated Russian missile and drone attacks that have killed civilians and damaged housing, industry and infrastructure.

President Vladimir Putin hailed what his commanders told him was the full Russian capture of the city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine as an important victory after a prolonged campaign, saying it would help Moscow fulfil its wider war aims.

Russia, which uses the Soviet-era name of Krasnoarmeysk to refer to the city, has faced fierce Ukrainian resistance in its battle since mid-2024 to capture Pokrovsk, once a strategic logistics hub for the Ukrainian army.

‘I want to thank you. This is an important direction. We all understand just how important,’ Putin, dressed in military uniform and sitting in a command centre, told the army’s top brass in a video released by the Kremlin late on Monday.