Ukraine sentences FSB agent to 15 years for guiding Russian bombs onto Pokrovsk

A Ukrainian court has sentenced a 38-year-old woman to 15 years in prison. Her crime: directing Russian aerial bombs at defense positions near Pokrovsk. The Selydove resident also faces confiscation of property. The SBU reported the verdict on 26 February.

She was part of a broader FSB agent network. Ukraine's security services first exposed that network in October 2023 during a special operation in Donetsk Oblast. Pokrovsk remains one of the war's most fiercely contested battlegrounds. Its fall would open the road deeper into Ukrainian-held territory. Every coordinate she sent translated into glide bombs aimed at soldiers holding that line.

"She traveled by car or on foot near the front line. Then she sent text messages and Google Maps screenshots to the FSB curator. The screenshots contained coordinates of Ukrainian Armed Forces facilities."—SBU

How she operated—and how she was caught

The FSB recruited the woman while she lived in Selydove. Her job was straightforward and deadly. She drove or walked near forward positions. She marked Ukrainian military facilities on Google Maps. Then she sent the screenshots to her Russian handler via messenger. That intelligence fed directly into Russian targeting for aerial bomb strikes.

SBU officers detained her in October 2024 in Kirovohrad Oblast. She had arrived from Donetsk Oblast posing as an internally displaced person. Her real plan was to flee to Russia through third countries. Officers seized a Russian passport she intended to use for the escape. The court found her guilty of high treason committed under martial law. The charge falls under Part 2 of Article 111 of Ukraine's Criminal Code.

Two other network members had already been detained near the front line in October 2023. They were caught monitoring routes of Ukrainian military equipment near Selydove and Kurakhivka. The woman now sentenced operated separately. She reported to the same handler.

Russia's shadow army of recruited civilians

The Pokrovsk case fits a pattern the SBU has been dismantling for years. Russia's FSB has built an extensive recruitment pipeline targeting ordinary Ukrainian civilians. It uses money, ideology, social media, and even romance to turn them into spotters.

A 19-year-old priest's daughter from Pokrovsk received 15 years. She had set up a live-streaming camera in her father's church. It pointed at a road used by Ukrainian troops, CNN reported. A UN World Food Programme volunteer used aid delivery routes to scout Ukrainian positions near Pokrovsk. A British military trainer switched from instructing Ukrainian soldiers to spying for the FSB. In February 2025, SBU Chief Vasyl Maliuk personally arrested a high-ranking traitor inside the agency itself.

"Passing information to Russian intelligence is the most common treason during wartime."—Ivan Kisilevych, Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office

Ukraine's "Bust an FSB Agent" chatbot has received over 5,000 reports of Russian recruitment attempts. Authorities have detained more than 600 individuals. The SBU has opened more than 3,800 treason investigations since the full-scale invasion began. That number reveals the scale of Russia's shadow war against its own neighbors.