FAUX-INDEPENDENT investigation organisation Bellingcat has denied involvement in a failed Ukrainian intelligence plot to hijack Russian fighter jets and persuade military pilots to defect. 

The Russian Security Service (FSB) has reported foiling the plot, which it said had been planned with the collusion of British intelligence services. 

“It is obvious that the operation itself was conducted with the support of Western special services, first and foremost, the UK’s,” a spokesman said on Monday. 

Russian spooks claimed it was a Nato-sponsored plot co-ordinated by Ukrainian intelligence service to hijack Russian Aerospace Forces war planes.

The FSB said that it had video footage of a conversation with a Ukrainian operative who said he would pay as much as $2 million (£1.67m) for a hijacked jet. 

It alleged that a man they described as Bellingcat’s lead Russian investigator, Christo Grozev, found two delivery drivers in Moscow to hand over an advance payment to Russian pilots who agreed to participate in the hijacking.

The Russian spooks said that a middleman they detained claimed to have been receiving orders from Mr Grozev, a Bulgarian citizen.  

“We know, not only from his statements, that Grozev is involved with MI6. In general, recently, Ukrainian intelligence has stopped hiding its ties with the special services of Nato countries and aspires to be closer to its sponsors from Washington and London,” an FSB operative said. 

Mr Grozev strenuously denied the claims in a lengthy Twitter post, though he admitted to having been involved in “a crazier-than-fiction story of triple-agents, fake passports and faux girlfriends — as a documentary film-maker.”

FSB agents used “a traditional mix of forged ‘evidence’ and loosely interpreted facts,” he claimed, describing the operation as a “serious blunder” for the Russian intelligence services.

He said that the FSB “unintentionally [revealed the] identities of dozens of counter-intel officers, their methods of operation, and their undercover assets.”

Mr Grozev denied the involvement of Ukrainian intelligence in the plan and said it was down to a few “maverick” former operatives, while describing claims of Nato support “total unadulterated bollocks. 

“If it were, there’d be no way we would — or want to — get access to it,” he said.

Bellingcat merely “found out about the initiative” taken by the supposedly independent “operatives” it knew from previous investigations and “assured ourselves a front seat.”

Bellingcat has been labelled undesirable in Russia with its activities prohibited in the country. Moscow dismisses its claims of independence, highlighting its funding from Western states. 

Kremlin spokesman Dimitri Peskov praised the FSB for foiling the plot at a press conference today. 

“This is definitely extremely effective work by our counterintelligence agents and this is why we give it a high mark,” he said.