Ukraine’s security service announced on Tuesday that it had exposed and destroyed one of the largest networks allegedly spreading pro-Russian “information sabotage” in the country, led by a priest of a minority church subordinate to Moscow, Reuters reported.

Officials in Kyiv said Moscow plans to step up its information war this spring, spreading disinformation in an attempt to divide Ukrainian society in the third year since its invasion.

The SBU reported that it had identified 15 members of a network linked to the Federal Security Service (FSB) of Russia, detaining four of them, including a clergyman of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) in Kyiv.

“This is one of the largest networks of the FSB, which has been operating in Ukraine since the beginning of the large-scale invasion,” the SBU said in a message on the Telegram channel.

According to the agency, the group was involved in spreading pro-Kremlin narratives aimed at destabilizing society and inciting religious enmity.

Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada banned the Moscow-backed Orthodox Church in 2023 after Kyiv accused the church of undermining Ukraine’s unity and cooperation with Russia after the full-scale invasion began.

Another major church in Ukraine is the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), which split from the UOC due to its affiliation with Russia. The church calls itself independent, saying it has severed ties with the Russian Orthodox Church, which supports Moscow’s war in Ukraine. A government commission ruled that the church is still canonically connected to Russia.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople recognized the autocephaly of the OCU in 2018.