Evidence

A search found a Kyiv Post article ('Ukraine May Have 300-500 Russian Spies Working for Kyiv') that directly references and paraphrases BBC reporting, stating nearly verbatim: 'HUR confirmed his cooperation with the agency, but the BBC could not independently verify the figure.' This refers to a BBC investigation featuring a source identified by the pseudonym 'Foma,' who claimed to coordinate a network of Russians feeding intelligence to Ukraine, with Ukraine's HUR (military intelligence directorate) confirming to the BBC that Foma and another source, 'Ivan,' do work for the agency, while the BBC said it could not verify the broader estimate of 300-500 Russian collaborators. I was unable to directly access the original BBC article due to search tool rate limits during this session, but the secondary source (Kyiv Post) closely mirrors and attributes the exact phrasing to BBC reporting, and no fact-checking organization (Reuters, AFP, Bellingcat, EUvsDisinfo) appears to have disputed or specifically investigated this claim as misinformation — it reads as a straightforward relay of BBC's own reported caveats rather than a viral false claim.