UKRAINE, KHARKIV OBLAST, June 6 — The court found guilty a man who had been directing Russian missile and bomb attacks in the Kharkiv region. He got a five-year prison sentence, reported the SBU spokesman Vladyslav Abdula.

Towns and villages of the Kharkiv Oblast, especially border settlements, came under massive Russian artillery shelling and airstrikes since Russia launched a new ground offensive north and northeast of the region in the Vovchansk and Lyptsi directions on May 10.

According to the investigation, following the information the man collected, the Russians planned to carry out a shelling of the civilian infrastructure of one of the frontline cities in the region.

Abdula said the man wanted to cross the frontline and get to the FSB’ branch’ in the temporarily occupied part of the Luhansk region. 

According to the SBU, the man is a former conscript of one of the military units of the Defence Forces, who, on the eve of his discharge, cooperated with the FSB.

Abdula says that the Russians agreed with the conscript to pass on the coordinates of potential targets through his parents, who encouraged their son to cooperate with the Russian Federation. The Russians also offered the man a plan for further escape after demobilization.

They used anonymous chats in a messenger to communicate. According to the investigation, the defendant sent the necessary geolocations (marks on a Google Map) to the Russians.

The SBU detained the informant near the frontline in the Kupiansk direction when he tried to reach the Russians’ positions in April this year covertly.

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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.