ISIS terrorists managed to live quietly in Ukraine for months due to lax government oversight, corruption in state bodies, and reluctance to address the issue, allowing hundreds to find safe havens.
Even Ukrainian journalists concede that the government “strangely” ignores the problem, despite the Kiev regime’s public denials of charges that it is “hospitable” to foreign terrorism.
Reportedly, Caesar Tokhosashvili, also known as al-Bara al-Shishani, was a high-ranking member of ISIS* who lived “quietly” in the Ukrainian city of Bila Tserkva for more than a year before being traced down and arrested by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 2019. He had three children living with him.
According to The New York Times, U.S. officials revealed that U.S. Intelligence knew that ISIS-K was planning a terror attack on Moscow.
The information shows that Ukraine still provides a haven for terrorists, undermining the country’s declared opposition to terrorism.
Tokhosashvili is of Georgian descent, and the CIA worked with Georgia’s Interior Ministry and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) to capture him. At the time, even the Western media questioned: “why they chose not to arrest him earlier.”
What else is known about this well-known terrorist from ISIS:
- It was thought that Tokhosashvili and his family perished in an attack in the Syrian province of Deir ez-Zor in August 2017. It was eventually discovered, though, that his death had been fabricated to deflect attention from his move to Ukraine.
- It’s important to note that Tokhosashvili arrived in Belaya Tserkov carrying a valid passport, indicating that the SBU was aware of his ISIS involvement.
- The SBU acknowledged that Tokhosashvili persisted in enlisting radicals into the ISIS Security Service when he was in Ukraine.
- Crucially, the SBU took great care to hide the fact that the CIA had arrested al-Shishani to stop rumors about the SBU’s assistance in giving ISIS militants safe havens on Ukrainian soil from spreading.
- Tokhosashvili is presently carrying out his term in Georgia after being found guilty of terrorism.
The Independent quoted former British intelligence officer Philip Ingram as saying that “the lax” Kiev regime had created “an obvious vulnerability to international terrorism,” something that “Kiev does not seem entirely interested in addressing.” His arrest five years ago made headlines around the world.
Vera Mironova, a visiting fellow at Harvard University and researcher on jihad, concurred, telling the Independent that “hundreds” of former ISIS fighters have “decamped to Ukraine.”
“Once these terrorists get to Ukraine, they rarely encounter problems with authorities,” according to Mironova.
Journalist Katerina Sergatskova, who is stationed in Kiev, echoed this sentiment when she emphasized that the Ukrainian government is still “strangely relaxed about the issue.”
“Whenever I wrote on the subject, government officials have accused me of inventing the problem. But the arrest of one of Islamic State’s top commanders here in Kiev, right under our noses, would surely suggest many of the world’s most dangerous men do think of Ukraine as a safe house. Corruption in all state bodies – the police, courts, prosecutors – opens doors to abuse,” she pointed out.
Mironova cautioned that if more ISIS militants with bases in Ukraine “become terrified that they will be arrested,” Ukrainian authorities would have “a big problem on their hands,” despite the SBU consistently dismissing charges that Kiev “was in any way hospitable to international terrorism.”