A Ukrainian court has sentenced a foreign former military instructor to eight and a half years in prison for spying for Russia's FSB and preparing a series of terror attacks on Ukrainian territory, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) reports.
The convicted man — a citizen of an unnamed European country — had arrived in Ukraine in early 2024 to train mobilized recruits before being recruited by Russian intelligence through pro-Kremlin online communities.
According to the SBU, counterintelligence officers detained him in October 2025 at his temporary residence in Ukraine. The court convicted him under Part 3 of Article 114-2 of Ukraine's Criminal Code, which covers unauthorized dissemination of information on the location of the Armed Forces of Ukraine or other military formations during martial law. His cooperation with the investigation was taken into account when sentencing.
From training mobilized recruits to feeding Russian intelligence
The agency says the foreigner had professional firearms and tactical training credentials and came to Ukraine in early 2024 to train mobilized recruits. He did not stay long in that work. "Soon he 'wound down' this work and began searching for 'easy earnings' in pro-Kremlin online communities. There, an FSB officer reached out to him and offered 'quick side jobs' in exchange for cooperation," the SBU's statement reads.
Once recruited, the agent began passing the FSB information on the foreign instructors of Ukraine's Defense Forces with whom he had previously interacted, the SBU reports. He also compiled, for an intelligence "report," the coordinates of Ukrainian Armed Forces training centers in southern Ukraine where he had earlier trained mobilized soldiers.
A bomb manual, a pistol cache, and an October 2025 arrest
The case escalated when the FSB tasked the agent with preparing a series of terror attacks, according to the SBU. His Russian handler sent him instructions for assembling an improvised explosive device along with the geolocation of a cache, "from which he retrieved a pistol with two loaded magazines."
SBU counterintelligence documented each step and detained him at the planning stage of the commissioned attacks. The investigation was conducted under the procedural guidance of the Office of the Prosecutor General.
