Mykolaiv Resident Sentenced to 8 Years for Passing Military Info to russia

A resident of Mykolaiv region was sentenced to imprisonment for passing the coordinates of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to Russian special services and justifying Russia's armed aggression in pro-Russian telegram chats. She pleaded guilty and expressed remorse.

This was reported by the Court Reporter with reference to the court verdict.

The Mykolaiv District Court found the resident of Ochakiv guilty of justifying Russian aggression and passing information about the Ukrainian military to the enemy. The woman had pro-Russian views and communicated on Telegram with the administrator of channels that collected information about the Armed Forces and spread Kremlin propaganda.

On June 26, 2024, she sent a representative of the Russian Federation screenshots of maps on which she marked the coordinates of the Ukrainian military. In the messages, she described the destruction after the shelling, pointing to objects where the military could be located, including the building of the tax inspection. On July 1, she reported the presence of the Ukrainian Armed Forces at tourist bases and a children's sanatorium, and on July 9, she marked their location on the coastline.

In addition, in open Telegram chats, she repeatedly justified the war, calling the Russian invasion "defense" and wishing the occupiers victory.

The investigation established that the woman passed information to Serhiy Lebedev, an agent of the Russian special services known by the pseudonym "Shaggy". He was recruiting informants in different regions of Ukraine, coordinating the shelling of peaceful cities and passing information to the occupiers.

In the fall of 2022, a missile attack on a residential building in Mykolaiv was launched by one of his agents. In 2024, he was sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison in Ukraine.

At the trial, the defendant pleaded guilty, claiming that she was remorseful. However, the court recognized her actions as a state crime and sentenced her to eight years in prison.

The Zavodskyi District Court of Mykolaiv also sentenced a local resident to 10 years in prison for passing on the coordinates of Ukrainian military facilities during martial law. He leaked information to the enemy about a military hospital, a reserve officer training faculty, and a dormitory.

Recently, law enforcement officers exposed another collaborator: in October 2024, a man used a pro-Russian Telegram channel to transmit information about military positions in Mykolaiv. In addition, the Mykolaiv Court of Appeal upheld the sentence of a 39-year-old resident of Vradiivka, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for high treason. He used Google Maps to mark the location of the Defense Forces, checkpoints and critical infrastructure.

Анна Бальчінос