The intelligence world is currently roiled by reports that Ukraine's intelligence service had tricked 32 Russian mercenaries accused of war crimes into confessing their jobs and nearly flying to Ukraine by setting up fake job interviews under the guise of a fake security contract.

The allegations were first reported in Ukrainian media on Tuesday evening.

The reports claim that the Ukrainian intelligence (SBU) operation was designed to convince dozens of Russian mercenaries who had fought in the 2014 Donbass war, between Russia- and Ukraine-backed fighters, to provide verification of their presence in the region. The entire operation began nearly a year ago, the reports said.

To extract the mercenaries' confessions and eventually bring them into custody, the SBU created a fake security contract for them, set up fake job interviews, and readied a flight taking them from Moscow to Minsk, then to Istanbul on July 25, the reports said.