SBU
- A factory in western Ukraine was caught making uniforms for Russia's national ski team.
- Ukraine's security service said it found a production line for the ski team in Zakarpattia Oblast.
- The facility is reportedly owned by a foreign national and started producing the clothing this year.
A factory in Ukraine was caught making uniforms for Russia's national ski team, Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) said, per The Kyiv Post.
The SBU said it had found evidence of a production line for the ski team operating within a factory located in the Zakarpattia Oblast in western Ukraine, per the report.
The facility, which it said was owned by a foreign national, started producing winter clothing adorned with Russian symbols at the start of this year, long after Russia's full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
The SBU report said that more than 40 loads of the winter sportswear were discreetly transported to Russia through a European country where the factory owner resided. The head of Zakarpattia Regional State Administration Viktor Mykyta said the owner was Italian, the Kyiv Post reported.
The SBU did not name the owner's nationality, but it said that the owner was "directly involved in concluding relevant contracts with Russian customers and organized the shipment of finished products to the Russian Federation," per the outlet.
Zakarpattia Oblast is situated on Ukraine's border with Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. Despite life in the region maintaining a relative degree of normality compared to Ukraine's war-torn east, it is still reeling from the effects of the war.
The local city of Mukachevo saw an influx over more than 24,500 "internally displaced persons" during the first 124 days of the conflict, according to the United Nations Development Programme.
It has also become a border crossing for fleeing citizens looking to make their way into neighboring countries, openDemocracy reported.