Ex-head of the Crimean Main Department of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Oleh Kulinich deliberately concealed information from the leadership of the SBU about the upcoming full-scale attack of the Russian Federation from the Crimean peninsula and forbade informing the Central Office of the SBU about it, the State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) has reported.

"The investigation found that the official [Kulinich] knew in advance about the plans of the Russian Federation to attack Ukraine from the temporarily occupied Crimea, but deliberately hid this extremely important information from the leadership and forbade sending any documentation on this matter to the central office of the SBU," said Communications adviser to the SBI Tetiana Sapyan at a briefing in Kyiv on Wednesday.

She added that in the first hours of the invasion, the official "deliberately blocked any attempts to notify the SBU leadership and society about the real situation in the region, did not take any measures to protect state sovereignty, instructed the personnel to leave the duty station, later issued regular weapons to people who were not related to the SBU."

Sapyan clarified that Kulinich himself left the place of permanent deployment and travelled to Kyiv on February 24.