A senior Ukrainian intelligence official was sentenced to life in prison for spying on Russia

A former top 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 attorney general said. He was previously head of the Security Service of the Anti-Terrorism Center of Ukraine (SBU).

The SBU said the operation, codenamed “Rat,” used the Save House in Kiev to communicate with Russian inspectors seeking classified information about Ukraine’s military and leadership.

The attorney general said Kozyura agreed to share “state secret” information in exchange for a monetary reward and deserves a harsher sentence.

Since Moscow launched its full-scale occupation in February 2022, Kiev has announced a number of operations to expose Russian agents on its soil.

After his arrest in February 2025, the SBU He released a picture of the former official with Ukraine’s intelligence chief, Vasyl Maluk.who led the investigation.

The agency said in a statement after the verdict. He was hired by Russia’s FSB in Vienna in 2018, but several years passed before the inspectors resumed contact with him in December 2024.

The SBU was then asked to gather and share information about the deployment and movement of Russian military forces, as well as Ukraine’s weapons, infrastructure, and its political and military leadership.

His duties included spying on SBU command posts and “systematically” sharing the results of Russian attacks, including wounded soldiers and civilians, according to a statement from Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko.

He added that he had “constant contact” with administrators, including sharing documents marked “confidential”.

The statement added: “The colonel who was in charge of the SBU had access to state secrets and was responsible for coordinating the fight against terrorism.”

“Anyone who wears Ukrainian epaulettes and starts working for the FSB becomes an enemy of Ukraine,” Kravchenko said. “Only a very severe punishment is suitable for these people.”

Kozyura was arrested last year after SBU officials “monitored the agent’s every move around the clock” and learned that he was communicating with a Russian operator using a separate cell phone and Wi-Fi router from the safe house, the SBU said.

He named his FSB supervisor in Russia as Yuri Shatalov, whose role was to coordinate the network of agents.

Before Kozyura’s arrest, Ukraine’s security services used it to “inundate Russian forces with massive amounts of disinformation,” while also withholding valuable information.

He was found guilty of high treason under martial law and illegal handling of firearms, ammunition or explosives by the Shevchenkivsky District Court in Kyiv.