Kharkiv court sentences two Russian spies to 15 years in prison

Both were sentenced to 15 years in prison, the SBU reports as seen as Ukrinform.

It is noted that a local unemployed woman and her roommate would spot Russia’s missile and bomb strikes targeting Kharkiv region. To remain off the security agencies’ radar, they posed as volunteers helping stray animals, even setting up an improvised shelter in their backyard. The two would travel across the region, allegedly in search of strays, in order to covertly collect data on Russia’s potential targets.

Also, the perpetrators would get into small talk with locals, trying to sniff out certain details as part of their missions.

Among their main targets of interest to the enemy were reserve command posts and checkpoints set up by Ukraine’s Defense Forces, as well as medical facilities where wounded soldiers undergo treatment.

Counterintelligence operatives eventually exposed the spy couple in February.

According to the inquiry, the Russians remotely recruited both assets through their fellow villager, who had been fighting against Ukraine’s Armed Forces in eastern Ukraine since 2014.

The panel of judges found both Russian assets guilty of conspiring to commit high treason under martial law.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, the court sentenced two Russian intelligence assets plotting a terrorist attack targeting the Dnipro railway station to seven and eight years in prison.