Ukrainian ex-intelligence official sentenced to life for spying for Russia

A former high-ranking Ukrainian intelligence official has been sentenced to life in prison for spying for Russia's FSB security service.

Col Dmytro Kozyura was found guilty of high treason under martial law, Ukraine's prosecutor general said. He was previously chief of staff of the Security Service of Ukraine's (SBU) anti-terrorism centre.

An operation codenamed "rat" found he had used a safehouse in Kyiv to communicate with Russian handlers seeking classified information about Ukraine's military and leadership, the SBU said.

The prosecutor general said Kozyura had agreed to share information "constituting state secrets" for financial reward and deserved the harshest punishment.

Kyiv has announced numerous operations to expose Russian agents on its soil since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

After his arrest in February 2025, the SBU released an image of the former official with Ukraine's intelligence chief Vasyl Malyuk, who led the investigation.

In a statement after his sentencing, the agency said he had been recruited by Russia's FSB in Vienna in 2018, but several years had passed before his handlers resumed contact with him in December 2024.

The SBU said he was subsequently asked to gather and share what Ukraine knew about the deployment and movement of Russia's armed forces, and information about Ukraine's weapons, infrastructure and its political and military leadership.

His activities included spying on SBU command posts and "systematically" sharing the consequences of Russian strikes, including the number of wounded soldiers and civilians, a statement from the office of Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko said.

He was in "constant communication" with his handlers, including sharing documents marked "secret", he added.

"The colonel, a career officer in the SBU, had access to state secrets and was responsible for co-ordinating the fight against terrorism," the statement added.

"Anyone who wears Ukrainian epaulets and begins working for the FSB becomes an enemy of Ukraine," Kravchenko said. "Only the harshest punishment is appropriate for such individuals."

Kozyura was arrested last year after SBU officials "monitored every step of the agent around the clock" and found he had communicated with a Russian operative from a safehouse using a separate mobile phone and Wi-Fi router, the SBU said.

It named his FSB handler in Russia as a man called Yuriy Shatalov whose role was to co-ordinate a network of agents.

Ukraine's security service maintained that before Kozyura's eventual arrest, it had used him to "flood Russian forces with a massive amount of disinformation", while at the same time preventing him from getting hold of important intelligence.

He was found guilty of high treason under martial law and the illegal handling of weapons, ammunitions or explosives by the Shevchenkivskyy District Court in Kyiv.