Ukraine finds weapons at homes of “agents of Russia”

MINSK, Belarus – Ukraine’s intelligence agency says it has found weapons and explosives at the homes of suspected “agents of Russia.”

The Ukrainian government has been fighting a separatist war in the east since 2014, which has killed more than 10,000 people. The Kyiv government has been wary of Russian influence since March 2014 when Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula following a hastily called referendum.

The Ukrainian Security Service’s spokeswoman, Olena Gitlyanska, told The Associated Press on Monday that it is conducting 25 searches in major cities at the homes of people “who abet the aggressor nation in its anti-Ukrainian operations.”

Gitlyanska said intelligence officers seized weapons and explosives at some of the locations. Some of the people whose homes were searched Monday are journalists, she said, without identifying them.