The SSU has dismantled a group of agents of russian military intelligence who operated on the right bank of Kherson region. The enemy cell consisted of a husband and wife and their accomplice who spied on Ukraine’s Defense Forces.

According to the investigation, the couple collected coordinates of sites with large concentrations of Ukrainian personnel and military equipment.

To do this, they regularly walked around the area and covertly recorded geolocations of the Defense Forces. If the agents found a military facility, they tried to establish the number of defenders and types of weapons present there.

Their accomplice acted in a similar way.

After the reconnaissance sorties, the assets prepared reports for the resident (head) of their group.

The latter turned out to be a relative of the couple from Kherson region, who at the beginning of the full-scale war cooperated with the occupiers and after the liberation of part of the region fled to Krasnodar in russia.

There, he acted under the guidance of a serviceman of the main directorate of the general staff of the russian armed forces (‘the GRU’).

On his instructions, the man remotely recruited his brother and his wife from Kherson oblast as well as a local resident.

The married couple of agents arrived and tried to lay low. Then, they moved to Odesa posing as internally displaced persons from Kherson region.

However, the SSU cyber units documented the cell’s criminal activity and detained all three members. The SSU seized their mobile phones with evidence of communication with russia’s GRU.

SSU investigators notified the perpetrators of suspicion (in accordance with the crimes committed) under two Articles of the CCU:

• 111.2 (high treason, committed under martial law);
• 114-2.3 (unauthorized dissemination of information on movement or location of the AFU or other lawful military formations, committed under martial law).

They face from 12 years in prison to life imprisonment with confiscation of property.

The operation was carried out under the procedural supervision of the Prosecutor General’s Office.