Chief of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Valentyn Nalyvaichenko has said that a criminal proceeding has been opened against two foreign intelligence service officers on charges of high treason.

"I can say only one thing about the foreign intelligence service: we opened a criminal proceeding, by the way, our counter-inelegance did it, on the charges of high treason, due to the fact of two officers of this [foreign intelligence] service switching sides to Russian-terrorist troops," the SBU Chief said in Kyiv on Tuesday.

As reported by a number of media outlets on Monday, Oleksiy Miroshnychenko, who had described himself as an the employee of the foreign intelligence service of Ukraine, and his brother Yuriy who worked in the Ukrainian Embassy in Paris, announced they had defected to the so-called 'Luhansk People's Republic' (LPR).

According to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, the employee of Ukrainian embassy in France that fled to the LPR isn't a diplomat, but a senior warrant officer of the State Border Guard Service, who had been dispatched to the embassy as a commandant. On Jun 9, he failed to show up to work, on June 10, he left with his families' belongings. The relevant agencies of France and Ukraine were informed that his service passport was no longer valid, and on June 11, the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine issued a decree dismissing him. The State Border Guard Service has started an investigation into the incident.