The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has reported that former Minister of Education and Science Dmytro Tabachnyk was sentenced to 15 years in prison in absentia and former head of the State Registration Service, Dmytro Vorona, to 12 years in absentia.
The convicts' property worth over UAH 200 million was confiscated.
Both criminals are hiding in the Russian Federation and the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine, where they are conducting subversive activities against Ukraine.
They are in direct contact with Oleh Kozlov, a staff member of the 9th Directorate of the Operational Information Department of theFSB's 5th Service. Under his coordination, Tabachnyk regularly provided the occupiers with his own forecasts on the development of the socio-political situation in Ukraine after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion.
Also, on Russian instructions, he advised Russia-installed officials Saldo and Balytskyy on the holding of pseudo-referendums in the occupied districts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions.
Another of Tabachnyk's tasks was to provide local collaborators with "methodological" assistance in reformatting the educational sector according to Russian "standards".
For his cooperation with the occupiers, the ex-minister was appointed an "adviser" to Balytskyy and included in the local branch of Putin's United Russia party.
The investigation found that Vorona was also an adviser to Balytskyy. It was he who prepared an appeal to the head of the Kremlin, in which he proposed to reward the Russian military and collaborators who took part in the seizure of part of the territory in southern Ukraine.
He also helped the invaders create the occupying authorities of the Russian Federation, including the formation of a "staff" of like-minded people.
He later became a "Russian senator from Zaporizhzhya Region" and moved to Moscow.
In addition, both traitors were involved in numerous cases of looting of local farmers' property and seizure of their enterprises.
Based on the evidence, the court found Tabachnyk and Vorona guilty under three articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine:
part 2 of Article 111 (high treason committed under martial law);
part 1, Article 111-2 (aiding and abetting the aggressor state);
part 2 Art. 28, part 1 Art. 438 (violation of the laws and customs of war).
The trial was held in a special court proceeding in absentia.
Comprehensive measures to bring the convicts to justice are underway. The SBU notes that the perpetrators will be found and punished.