A judge's assistant was sentenced to life in prison in Kherson

During the occupation of Kherson, a former judge’s assistant gathered information for the FSB on people whom the invaders wanted to intimidate or eliminate. He was sentenced to life in prison for treason.

This was reported by the Center for Public Investigations.

The court found the former assistant judge of the Kherson Court of Appeals guilty of treason. The trial was held in absentia—the defendant is in hiding in Russia.

According to the case file, the man held pro-Russian views. As early as the spring of 2022, during the occupation of Kherson, he voluntarily agreed to cooperate confidentially with a representative of the Russian FSB, who operated under a pseudonym.

Communication with his handler took place via the Telegram messaging app. The investigation identified the FSB representative—he turned out to be a career officer of the Russian special services.

Working at the Court of Appeals, the man had access to information about residents of the Kherson region, including law enforcement officers, judges, and activists. He took advantage of this information.

At the handler’s instruction and on his own initiative, the man:

• filmed a pro-Ukrainian rally in Kherson to send the footage to the Russians so they could identify the organizers;
• verified the home addresses of current and former employees of the police, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), and the prosecutor’s office;
• obtained the phone numbers of a local deputy who refused to cooperate with the occupiers;
• passed the collected data to an FSB representative.

The court determined that the purpose of these actions was to coerce people into cooperating with the occupiers, intimidate them, or physically eliminate them.

The court heard the case in the defendant’s absence, as he is in hiding in the temporarily occupied territory. Before rendering its verdict, the court separately verified whether the man’s right to a defense had been upheld.

The court found that the defendant had been summoned to the hearing via summonses and public notices. A court-appointed defense attorney represented the man’s interests throughout the proceedings.

The prosecutor sought a life sentence with confiscation of property. The defense attorney requested that the defendant be acquitted, citing insufficient evidence.

The court considered the evidence from the investigation—in particular, intercepted Telegram messages in which the defendant discussed details of surveillance operations with an FSB handler, as well as the testimony of a witness whose wife had been visited by armed men.

The court found the man guilty of high treason and sentenced him to life imprisonment with confiscation of all his property. The pretrial detention order remained unchanged.

According to IRS-South correspondents, theindividual in question is Svyatoslav Berezovsky, who worked as an agent for the Russian FSB under the alias “Bars.”

Ірина Глухова