Intelligence chiefs believe Russian spies provided information from a Ukrainian base which was attacked on Sunday, with three Brits understood to be among the dead.
Officials are investigating whether an 'insider' purporting to be a foreign recruit for Ukraine was in fact working for Russian spy agencies at the Yavoriv base.
The Daily Mirror has learned Ukrainian and western intelligence agencies believe Russian GRU and SVR spy agencies had “turned” foreign fighters on the base.
One of the 1,500 foreign recruits there supposedly to fight for Ukraine against Russia is suspected of sending crucial coordinates and information to Russia.
A well-placed source told the Daily Mirror a Ukrainian Army guard at the base spotted a man running away from the base, apparently holding a laptop shaped object, before the strikes hit.
Want all the latest news and analysis from Ukraine? Sign up to our World News Bulletin here
![](https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article26466449.ece/ALTERNATES/s810/0_Russian-spies-had-insiders-among-foreign-fighters-on-Ukraine-base-before-three-Brits-feared-killed.jpg)
![](https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article26466451.ece/ALTERNATES/s810/0_Russian-spies-had-insiders-among-foreign-fighters-on-Ukraine-base-before-three-Brits-feared-killed.jpg)
The claim, the Mirror understands, is being investigated by Ukraine’s SBU intelligence and security agency, which suspects Russia had insiders on the base.
Three British ex-special forces troops are feared to have been killed in the deadly Russian airstrike close to the Polish border, the Daily Mirror can reveal.
It is believed they died instantly in the horror cruise missile strikes which killed “many scores more” than has been previously reported - possibly well over 100 dead.
![](https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article26466450.ece/ALTERNATES/s810/0_Russian-spies-had-insiders-among-foreign-fighters-on-Ukraine-base-before-three-Brits-feared-killed.jpg)
![](https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article26466452.ece/ALTERNATES/s810/0_Russian-spies-had-insiders-among-foreign-fighters-on-Ukraine-base-before-three-Brits-feared-killed.jpg)
Sources say the three men were not part of the foreign fighters unit that was being trained at the now destroyed Yavoriv base, which is just six miles from the Polish border.
It is not known which branch of special forces they had served in.
As many as 30 cruise missiles were unleashed on the camp, 35 miles from the western Ukrainian city of Lviv where thousands of refugees have flocked to.
It is believed all of the missiles were fired by six Russian bombers from within Russia, although a number of them were shot down by Ukrainian ground defence systems.
As many as 13 missiles smashed into the buildings within the base, one scoring a direct hit on the camp’s HQ.
Asked in the aftermath of the devastating blasts on Sunday if British casualties were among the dead UK Foreign Office sources said they were unaware of any.
The British MoD confirmed there were no serving personnel killed or injured in the explosions.
A source told the Daily Mirror: “There were many more killed within the site than has been claimed and bodies are still being found.
“I do not believe the three British ex-military personnel would have known anything about it, fortunately.
“This is extremely sensitive as there are believed to be no serving British military personnel inside Ukraine as politically that would be extremely controversial.
![](https://i2-prod.irishmirror.ie/incoming/article26458920.ece/ALTERNATES/s810/0_GettyImages-1239148825.jpg)
“But there is no doubt in the minds of many that there were insiders within the camp who were compromised and who were helping the Russians.
“This particular person who was seen by the camp guard may well have provided crucially needed coordinates for the strike on the HQ building and they timed it for maximum devastation.
“We understand that the SBU suspect the foreign fighters have been compromised.”
![](https://i2-prod.irishmirror.ie/incoming/article26457198.ece/ALTERNATES/s810/0_GettyImages-1239150041.jpg)
Witnesses have described how the attack at 5.45am “turned the sky red.”
Hours after the attack, ambulances were still rushing to the scene.
Roads leading to the military facility were blocked with checkpoints and authorities were conducting search-and-rescue operations.
The base is known as the International Peacekeeping and Security Center.
Russia continued its civilian onslaught yesterday, shelling a nine storey Kyiv apartment block ,killing one, injuring a dozen and sparking scenes of horror on the outskirts of the capital.
Barbaric artillery strikes by Moscow’s troops on outer Kyiv were revealed in apocalyptic images taken outside Kyiv as Ukraine’s ferocious defence of the capital got underway.
Kyiv’s mayor and former heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko today walked in front of a destroyed apartment as the city was pounded again by shelling and missile attacks.
![](https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article26463219.ece/ALTERNATES/s810/0_UKRAINE-RUSSIA-CONFLICT.jpg)
He tweeted: “Putin’s dream of creating a Greater Russia is my country’s nightmare.”
Ukraine’s defence minister Oleksii Reznikov said: “Kyiv. One of the most beautiful cities in the EU today looks like a frame of an apocalypse movie.”
Russian troops are edging closer to the capital and fighting is still raging in the suburbs, with two killed and seven injured at a nearby aircraft factory.
![](https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article26466522.ece/ALTERNATES/s810/0_Russias-attack-on-Ukraine-continues-in-Kyiv.jpg)
Speaking after this morning’s attack, Volodymyr Zelensky vowed to rebuild every destroyed Ukrainian street and building.
Firefighters tackled the remains of a blaze at the damaged apartment block in the capital, where a stunned young resident Maksim Korovi said: “The staircase was not there anymore, everything was on fire.
“We didn’t know what to do. So we ran out to the balcony. We managed to put on whatever clothes we had at hand and made our way from balcony to balcony and in the end we climbed down by the next building’s entrance.”
![](https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article26464310.ece/ALTERNATES/s810/0_Shelling-kills-2-civilians-in-Ukrainian-capital.jpg)
Ukraine believes the civilian toll is in the thousands, with 90 children killed and more than 100 children injured.
More than 2,500 residents of stricken Mariupol have been killed so far, presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said.
Multiple evacuation attempts from the besieged southern port of Mariupol have failed but the city council said 160 cars had left at lunchtime on Monday.
![](https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article26466525.ece/ALTERNATES/s810/0_Shelling-kills-2-civilians-in-Ukrainian-capital.jpg)
The invasion has sent more than 2.8 million people fleeing across Ukraine’s borders and trapped hundreds of thousands in besieged cities.
Russia’s military has bombarded Ukraine’s cities with a punishing assault that the Red Cross said has created “nothing short of a nightmare” for the country’s civilians.
Air raid alerts sounded in cities and towns all around the country overnight, from near the Russian border in the east to the Carpathian Mountains in the west, as fighting continued outside Kyiv.
![](https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article26466523.ece/ALTERNATES/s810/0_UKRAINE-RUSSIA-CONFLICT.jpg)
A town councillor for Brovary, east of Kyiv, was killed in fighting there, officials said.
Shells also fell on the Kyiv suburbs of Irpin, Bucha and Hostomel, which have seen some of the worst fighting.
Air strikes were reported across the country, including the southern city of Mykolaiv, and the northern city of Chernihiv, where heat was knocked out to most of the town.
Explosions also rang out overnight around the Russian-occupied Black Sea port of Kherson.
In the eastern city of Kharkiv, firefighters doused the remains of a four-storey residential building on a street of apartments and shops.