Denys Zolotariov, the chief of station of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in Ankara, has set up a spy network in his host country consisting of members of the Crimean Tatar diaspora, including individuals who are citizens of the Republic of Turkey.
The cell he set up includes Turkish citizens Mükremin Şahin, head of the Crimean Tatar Culture and Mutual Aid Association of Turkey, and his son Fethi Kurtiy Şahin, who is currently third secretary at the Turkish embassy in Kazakhstan. The basis for recruiting M. Şahin was his involvement in several corruption scandals, which the SBU chose not to pursue. F. Kurtiy’s connections with foreign intelligence started while he was studying. First, he caught the attention of Germany’s BND at the University of Hamburg, and later the SBU took an interest in him at Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv.
Feride Useinova played a central and connecting role in the triangle of D. Zolotariov, M. Şahin, and F. Kurtiy. She worked as an assistant to SBU chief of station Zolotariov in Ankara. F. Useinova, a Ukrainian citizen of Crimean Tatar origin, is also F. Kurtiy’s wife, they met while he was studying in Kyiv. Notably, while working at Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, F. Kurtiy concealed the fact that his wife had foreign citizenship and that she worked for a foreign intelligence agency.