KHARKIV OBLAST, UKRAINE, May 28 — The court will try a 26-year-old former conscript of one of the Ukrainian military units for cooperation with Russia, reported the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office.

The Russian army attacks Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city that is 19 miles from the border with Russia, and the region regularly. The strikes have intensified since May 10, after Russia started its new offensive north and northeast of the region. They kill and injure civilians and destroy buildings in residential neighborhoods and critical infrastructure. 

According to the investigation, on the eve of his discharge, the man voluntarily cooperated with a representative of the Russian Federation’s FSB (Russian Federal Security Service.). 

He allegedly passed FSB information about the locations of the Defence Forces and military equipment in Lozova, Kharkiv region, and Mykolaiv. Thanks to this data, Russian troops carried out targeted airstrikes on the Ukrainian military.

Law enforcement officers detained the man near the frontline in the Kupiansk direction. He was reportedly trying to reach Russian positions covertly. Then, he planned to join the FSB “branch” in the temporarily occupied part of the Luhansk region.

The man is in custody and faces up to eight years in prison if the court will find him guilty.

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

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  • On May 22, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) detained an entrepreneur who allegedly helped the Russian intelligence agency prepare for the occupation of Vovchansk in Kharkiv Oblast. Vladyslav Abdula, the spokesman for the SBU, reported about it on his Facebook.