Verdict for High Treason
A 60-year-old pensioner from Slavuta has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for state treason by the Shepetivka City District Court. The man collaborated with Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) starting in April 2023, gathering intelligence, proposing targets for strikes, and planting GPS trackers. He was apprehended on August 30, 2023, while attempting to attach a tracker to a strategic bridge. This case highlights the ongoing internal security challenges Ukraine faces amidst the full-scale Russian invasion.
The court established that the traitor relayed information on Ukrainian Armed Forces equipment movements and placed tracking devices on strategic infrastructure. His cooperation with an FSB handler began in April 2023, with initial targets including:
- defense enterprises in Shepetivka
- railway facilities
For each completed task, he received between three and five thousand hryvnias transferred to his PrivatBank card. He also suggested attacking large military warehouses in the village of Tsvitokha, after which Russian forces launched a Shahed drone attack on that military unit's territory in May 2023.
The Traitor's Final Mission
His final assignment involved planting a GPS tracker under a strategic railway bridge on the Shepetivka-Novohrad-Volynskyi route. Upon his arrest, law enforcement found the tracker fully operational. His phone contained correspondence where he promised the FSB he would help identify patriotic citizens in the event of the region's occupation. The court found the pensioner guilty of state treason under Part 2 of Article 111 of Ukraine's Criminal Code and imposed a 15-year prison sentence.
Additionally, the court confiscated all his property, including a VAZ car, and ordered him to pay nearly 32,000 hryvnias to the state to cover expert examination costs. In related counterintelligence operations, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) detained another FSB agent who had been spying in the Kyiv and Kharkiv regions. In the Kyiv region, law enforcement neutralized an intelligence network of Russia's GRU (Main Intelligence Directorate) that was preparing a series of contract killings. The group was coordinated by a career Russian intelligence officer with the call sign "Meteor" and included four recruited individuals, among them an active law enforcement officer. The network members were detained just before they could prepare to assassinate Serhii Fitsa, commander of the DTFG "Legion D."
This case underscores the serious threat posed by the collaboration of some Ukrainian citizens with hostile foreign intelligence services.
The arrest and conviction are part of a broader campaign by Ukrainian law enforcement to identify and neutralize threats to national security. SBU operations targeting FSB and GRU agents demonstrate the state's active efforts to counter hostile influences during the ongoing war.
This case is part of a broader pattern of espionage activities in Ukraine, as evidenced by the recent arrest of an FSB agent in Kyiv and Kharkiv regions. Such incidents reveal the persistent threat posed by foreign intelligence operations within the country. To learn more about the ongoing efforts to combat espionage and safeguard national security, read about the detention of an FSB agent in Ukraine.