The court sentenced an FSB agent to 15 years in prison with confiscation of property. He was detained by the Security Service of Ukraine in April last year in Donetsk Region.
The traitor directed Russian fire at fortified areas and positions of the Defense Forces in the Novopavlivka sector, the SBU reported.
The spotter turned out to be an archpriest of the Pokrovsk Diocese of the UOC (Moscow Patriarchate). The Russian special service made contact with the priest through his daughter, who lives in Russia. After the start of the full-scale invasion, she sent a letter to Putin requesting Russian citizenship for her mother and sister, who remained in Ukraine.
An FSB officer offered the clergyman cooperation in exchange for money and the “evacuation” of his family to Russia with Russian passports arranged.
The traitor agreed to walk around frontline areas, record the locations of Ukrainian troops, and pass the information he found to his handler via a messenger app. SBU officers detained the traitor at his place of residence and seized a smartphone containing evidence of the crime.
The court found the man guilty of high treason committed under martial law.
Update. According to information from LB.ua sources, this concerns Archpriest Valentyn Hnezdilov, a native of Donetsk, who is registered in Donetsk Region but in fact lives in Dnipropetrovsk Region
Hnezdilov is the rector of two communities of the Pokrovsk Vicariate of the Kyiv Metropolis of the UOC: the Church of the Resurrection of Righteous Lazarus (the village of Voskresenka) and St. Dmytriy’s Church (the settlement of Zelenyy Hay).