UKRAINE, KHARKIV, Nov 6 – In Kharkiv region, a resident was sentenced to five years in prison for collecting intelligence on the location of the Defense Forces in the region and passing it on to Russian special services, reported the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in Kharkiv region.

Since the start of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, more than 1,000 people in the Kharkiv Oblast have received a notice of suspicion in proceedings over treason, collaboration, and dissemination of information about the movement of the Armed Forces.

SBU spokesman Vladyslav Abdula said the 46-year-old unemployed man began working with the Russians in April of this year. He met an employee of the Russian special services through a popular messenger who posed as an “ordinary” Russian civilian.

Under the guise of a “close relationship”, Abdula says, the woman gradually involved the man in intelligence activities. The man went around the northern territories of the Kharkiv district, where he secretly recorded the places of the largest concentration of Ukrainian military personnel.

The Russians needed this information to prepare new missile and drone strikes and to allow sabotage and reconnaissance groups to break through to the northern outskirts of Kharkiv.

Abdula says SBU detained the man a few months after he started his activities, in June. During the search, they seized his phone with evidence of communications with Russian special services. 

The man is not in prison yet, as the time period for filing an appeal is still ongoing. 

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