The Security Service of Ukraine’s military counter-intelligence, with the assistance of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, has detained a married couple in Kharkiv suspected of working for Russia.
The SBU said one of those detained is a local man mobilised into a Territorial Defence Forces brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who was leaking information to the enemy from “inside”.
The Russians recruited the Kharkiv resident through his neighbour, a professor at a Kharkiv university whom the SBU exposed in March this year for directing shelling of the city. After the lecturer’s arrest, the suspect, acting on the enemy’s instructions, was mobilised into the Ukrainian military, where he was assigned as a reserve soldier in a spare company of a combat unit.
There, under the guise of official trips, the agent tracked the locations of air defence units, electronic warfare assets and fortifications protecting Kharkiv. He also marked on Google Maps the geolocations of local combined heat and power plants and key electricity substations supplying the city and surrounding areas.
He later drew his unemployed wife into cooperation with the enemy. At first, she walked around the city to identify bases of Ukrainian troops and pass the intelligence to him. Later, the woman reported directly to her handler in Russia.
The next assignment for her husband was to undergo training as an operator of unmanned systems and “leak” to the Russian special service the materials obtained during the course. After completing the training, the serviceman hoped to receive a promotion in UAV units to broaden the scope of his espionage activities in the interests of the aggressor state.
SBU officers exposed the agent pair, documented their crimes step by step and detained both: the man was caught in the act during a new reconnaissance outing, and his wife was detained at their place of residence.
During searches, officers seized 12 smartphones, four laptops and two tablets, which they constantly swapped out to maintain covert communications with Russia’s GRU.
Investigators from the Security Service have now served both detainees with suspicion notices under Part 2 of Article 111 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (high treason committed under martial law).
Both are being held in custody without the right to post bail. They face life imprisonment with confiscation of property.
- A resident of Lviv Region was sentenced to 15 years in prison with confiscation of property after the SBU exposed him last May for directing strikes on the region.