At the onset of the full-scale invasion, former SBU chief in Crimea, Kulinich, confiscated weapons from his staff, according to Times.

This is mentioned in the Times article.

The publication states that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) gained access to documents seized from a computer at the Russian intelligence office in Moscow, as well as during a search of a spy's apartment in Kyiv.

Among other things, there are photographs and videos showing Kulinich vacationing abroad with Vladimir Sivkovich, the curator of the Russian spy network in Ukraine, as well as their correspondence.

The documents confirm that Kulinich had access to critically important secret data about the country's defense capabilities, making him a highly valuable agent for the FSB. During his position in 2020-2021, he effectively dismantled counterintelligence operations in Crimea.

“In April 2021, he initiated large-scale anti-terrorism exercises in the Kherson region, which he used to identify vulnerabilities in Ukraine's defense. In the early hours of the invasion, he blocked any attempts to inform the SBU leadership about the real situation in the region, and even more — confiscated weapons from SBU staff,” the article states.

What is known about the case?

Oleg Kulinich was arrested on July 16, 2022, during a special operation by the State Bureau of Investigation (GBR) and the Security Service of Ukraine. Since then, he has been in custody.

According to the investigation, Oleg Kulinich (at the time an active officer for special assignments in the I category of the group of assistants and consultants to the SBU leadership) collaborated with the FSB under the operational pseudonym “Kotigoroshko.”

According to the SBU, his activities were supervised by a so-called political office in Moscow, which was organized at the request of the FSB by former Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Vladimir Sivkovich and former head of the Ukrainian President's Administration Andriy Klyuev.

Kulinich followed the curators’ directives to conduct intelligence and sabotage activities against Ukraine, engage in espionage, place “his people” in various state and law enforcement agencies, and incite citizens to commit treason.

According to the investigation, Kulinich was also aware in advance of Russia's plans to launch an attack from temporarily occupied Crimea on mainland Ukraine, but deliberately concealed this critical information from the leadership and prohibited sending any related documentation to the SBU's central office.

In the early hours of the full-scale invasion, he consciously blocked any attempts to inform the SBU leadership and the public about the real situation in the region, took no measures to protect state sovereignty, ordered personnel to leave their place of service, and later issued service weapons to individuals unrelated to the SBU.

Furthermore, Kulinich left his permanent deployment location and had already traveled to Kyiv by February 24. In one of the apartments where he lived, investigators found a cache of weapons and his documents from his time serving in the KGB of the USSR.

The head of the Security Service of Ukraine, Vasyl Maliuk, reported that as part of the proceedings against Kulinich, the question is being investigated as to why the corresponding explosions did not occur at the mined sites in Chonhar, Kherson region.

Immediately after his arrest, Kulinich was informed of suspicions under articles of the Criminal Code: treason (Art. 111), creation of a criminal organization (Art. 255), unauthorized abandonment of the place of service in conditions of martial law (Art. 407), unlawful acquisition and storage of weapons (Art. 410 and 263).