“The Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation claims that Yevgeny Melnychuk passed on “information about the locations and movements of personnel and equipment of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation” to the Ukrainian Central Intelligence Agency (GUR) on the occupied peninsula”, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
The agency claims that in the period from December 2021 to October 2022, Melnychuk provided the Ukrainian Central Intelligence Agency (GUR) with “information about the locations and movements of personnel and equipment of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation” on the occupied peninsula. “Transmitted data could be used to launch fire strikes at locations of deployment of the Russian military,” the message states.
The Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation stated that Melnychuk is a resident of Kyiv. TASS and RIA Novosti, citing the press service of the court, indicated that the man lived in Yalta. As noted, the case was considered behind closed doors, as the materials “contain information that constitutes a state secret.”
Earlier, a Russian court in the Russian-occupied part of the Kherson region sentenced 33-year-old Ukrainian citizen Oleg Kovalenko to 12 years in a high-security prison on charges of espionage. According to the investigation, from March to August 2022, the man, being in the territory of the Kherson region, allegedly collected data on the deployment locations of military equipment and personnel of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. He allegedly transmitted the information he received to representatives of Ukrainian military formations through a messenger.
The same court passed a similar sentence to another citizen of Ukraine – 35-year-old Ihor Protokovil, a deputy of the city council of Novaya Kakhovka, Kherson region. He was kidnapped by the Russian military in April 2022. According to Russian investigators, Protokovilo transmitted “information about the deployment of Russian military units” to a SBU employee from his mobile phone in April 2022.