Senior Ukrainian Security Officer Gets Life Sentence for Treason and Spying for Russia

Colonel Dmytro Koziura, a former chief of staff at the Ukrainian Security Service’s counterterrorism center, has been sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of high treason and espionage for Russia’s FSB. A Kyiv district court also found him guilty of illegal handling of weapons, ammunition, or explosives under Ukraine’s wartime laws.

According to Ukraine’s Security Service, known as the SBU, Koziura used a safe house in Kyiv to communicate with Russian handlers. He sought classified information about the Ukrainian military and leadership, and also about Russian troop deployments and movements, Ukrainian weapons, infrastructure, and political and military officials. Prosecutors said he agreed to share state secrets in exchange for money.

The SBU said Koziura was recruited by the FSB in Vienna in 2018, but the contact was renewed only in December 2024. His activity included spying on SBU command posts and systematically passing along the results of Russian strikes, including the number of wounded soldiers and civilians. He also repeatedly sent classified documents.

General Prosecutor Ruslan Kravchenko said, “Anyone who wears Ukrainian insignia and starts working for the FSB becomes an enemy of Ukraine.” He added, “Only the harshest punishment is appropriate for such people.” Koziura was arrested last year after the SBU said it had monitored him around the clock, discovered he was using separate mobile phone and Wi-Fi router devices to contact a Russian agent from the safe house, and claimed that before his arrest he had been used to flood Russian forces with large amounts of disinformation while being prevented from obtaining useful intelligence.