Ukraine arrests 'collaborator' who denounced father to Russians

Ukraine's security services said Friday they had arrested a local official who collaborated with Russian forces and handed his father over to them to be "tortured".

Kyiv is waging an intense crackdown on thousands of Ukrainian officials and civil servants in the east and south of the country who it says welcomed and worked with Russia after it invaded in February 2022.

Ukraine's SBU security service said Friday it had arrested an unnamed former local elected official from the southern Kherson region who it said was "one of the first to offer the invaders his 'help' in their war against Ukraine."

The SBU said the official gave up the names and addresses of several members of local resistance groups, including his own father.

"The father, a patriot, was taken to a local Russian torture chamber, and subjected to numerous forms of torture in an attempt to persuade him to cooperate," the SBU said.

It said the former official faces life in prison if convicted on charges of high treason and collaboration.

Ukraine has opened more than 6,600 criminal cases "against individuals for collaboration and other conflict-related crimes in Ukraine," since the start of the war, the United Nations said last week.