Kyiv’s Schevchenkivsky District Court has sentenced an agent of Russian military intelligence, who worked at one of the enterprises of the state concern Ukroboronprom, to nine years in prison for treason.
The press center of Ukraine’s SBU State Security Service on Aug. 31 said counterintelligence officers found that a resident of Zaporizhia was recruited in the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in 2014 as a staff member of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces to support the cause of the “Russian world.”
The SBU said the individual, for a monetary reward, collected information for the Russian special services on various aspects of the functioning of enterprises of the Ukrainian defense industry and the socio-political situation in Zaporizhia region. He collected intelligence via electronic communication channels worked out by the officer of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, and also transmitted during personal meetings in the territory of the Russian Federation, Belarus and the temporarily occupied Crimea.
Law enforcement officers detained the agent at the state border crossing with intelligence materials and seized a hidden magnetic storage medium (micro-SD), which contained intelligence collected for the Russian side.
“Shevchenkivsky district court found the person involved in the case guilty of committing a crime under Part 1 of Article 111 (high treason) of Ukraine’s Criminal Code and sentenced him to nine years in prison,” the SBU said in a statement.
The SBU said that during the pretrial investigation, the agent pleaded guilty and signed an agreement between the prosecutor and the suspect on the recognition of guilt, which was transferred to the court for sentencing.
