Border guard sentenced to 15 years for spying for Russia on northern border

A border guard from the Volyn Oblast, who was caught spying on Ukraine's northern border on behalf of Russia, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison, the Office of the Prosecutor General and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) reported.

The court found the senior sergeant of the border service guilty of high treason and sentenced him to 15 years of imprisonment with confiscation of property. Additionally, he was stripped of his military rank and banned from holding any positions in law enforcement, government, or local administration for three years.

The SBU clarified that the convicted man was a 40-year-old assistant to the head of a local border detachment, who had been remotely recruited by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB).

It was proven that the man used a messaging app to provide an FSB agent with confidential information he had gathered about his colleagues and superiors in the border detachment. He disclosed names, ranks, call signs, phone numbers, and other details.

Moreover, he leaked classified information that contained state secrets. The border guard provided the Russian intelligence officer with data on weapons, transport, border patrol composition and routes, technical security equipment, the location of surveillance cameras, and the geolocation of the area and facilities within it.

SBU counterintelligence officers detained the perpetrator in June this year and identified his Russian handler. The handler was revealed to be Alexei Dobritsky, an FSB officer based in the temporarily occupied Luhansk.

The border guard came under the FSB's attention while serving in eastern Ukraine. Later, he was transferred to the Volyn Oblast, where he carried out the "tasks" assigned by the occupiers. In exchange for cooperating with the Russians, he hoped for "evacuation" to Russia and a "position" in the aggressor's military formations.