"The Russian Armed Forces struck the communications servers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but did not hit. The provided scheme will help with an accurate hit." In Kyiv, an IT worker from Ukrtelecom was sentenced to 15 years for transmitting data about the internal communications system of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the situation around the CHP to the Russians

On July 16, the panel of judges of the Dniprovsky District Court of Kyiv decided to sentence an official of Ukrtelecom, accused of high treason, to 15 years in prison.

What happened

A man who graduated from a higher educational institution with a degree in computer science and rose through the ranks at Ukrtelecom from a 3rd category software engineer to the head of a department in the Kyiv City Directorate, the Infrastructure Development Directorate branch, the Corporate Center, and also to the head of the core network planning service of the network planning department of the technical directorate, leaked sensitive data to the enemy.

As stated in the court materials, having his subjective attitude towards Ukrainian statehood, independence and sovereignty of Ukraine, being under the intellectual influence of imperial Russian ideology, and lacking patriotic convictions, he began to cooperate with representatives of the enemy.

After the start of the full-scale invasion, he, working as the head of the core network planning service of the network planning department of the technical directorate of PJSC "Ukrtelecom" (from 04/27/2021 - JSC "UKRTELECOM"), decided to embark on the path of illegal activity and committed a crime against the foundations of national security of Ukraine, related to high treason under martial law, under the following circumstances:

Thus, an IT worker, while in Kyiv, in the fall of 2023, through the Telegram messenger application, contacted and established constant communication with a representative of the FSB of the Russian Federation, who, while in the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine, has been using a phone number since July 24, 2023, belonging to a serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who served as a combat medic and went missing while performing a combat mission in the area of the settlement of Klishchiivka, Bakhmut district, Donetsk region.

An unidentified Russian special services officer, while communicating with a Ukrtelecom specialist on the Telegram messenger, regularly informed another Russian special services officer about the results of his work with the Ukrainian. This FSB representative then sent the information he received to a Russian special services officer who, since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, had been recruiting IT specialists and telecommunications network specialists in Kyiv and Kharkiv.

A Kyiv resident received an offer to provide the Russians with the coordinates of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' military servers, through which internal communication is organized in the form of geographical coordinates with corresponding explanatory inscriptions and an address.

In response to the task received, the IT officer, while in a place in Kyiv that was not determined by the pre-trial investigation, agreed to cooperate with a representative of the enemy for personal political and ideological interests and benefit.

The Aitivets-communications officer participated in the development and approval of the document entitled "Military Unit Connection Scheme", without arousing suspicion, collected relevant information in November 2023 and was able to obtain information on the military unit connection scheme, indicating the territorial reference (geographic coordinates) where the servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other military formations formed in accordance with the law were located.

Later, at the end of November 2023, he transferred to a representative of a foreign organization the information he had about the fixed-line connection facility of the JSC Ukrtelecom network in the military unit of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The defendant accompanied the specified information with textual statements that the Russian Armed Forces had launched strikes on the AFU communication servers, but had not hit them, and that the scheme he provided would help with an accurate hit.

Thus, the enemy was able to eavesdrop on incoming and outgoing city telephone conversations of the military, manage all calls, and have access to the content of conversations of the entire city number resource to which Ukrtelecom JSC has access.

At the same time, the information that the traitor passed on to a representative of a foreign state was not made publicly available by the General Staff, the Ministry of Defense, or other authorized state bodies.

Later, the traitorous IT worker also gave the enemy information about the placement of checkpoints around one of the capital's thermal power plants. He accompanied this information with textual statements that "there is air defense near this thermal power plant, I saw anti-aircraft guns, checkpoints on the exit from Kyiv and near the thermal power plant with partial verification of documents, the road to the forest is blocked, because there may also be air defense there."

What does the traitor say?

The accused pleaded not guilty to the criminal offense charged against him and indicated that on February 24, 2022, his life changed, he and his family left for the city of Lviv, from where his wife and daughter left for Britain, and he remained in Lviv, working at Ukrtelecom.

In May, he returned to Irpin, where he packed up his belongings in a partially destroyed house and moved to an apartment in Kyiv. Due to constant air raids, bombings, and explosions, he developed a nervous breakdown that steadily worsened.

In the fall of 2023, an unknown account from a Ukrainian mobile phone number contacted him via Telegram and asked how he was doing. He replied by asking who he was and what they wanted from him. During the correspondence, he was informed that they had his documents — passport, identification number, documents of his wife and daughter, and they also informed him that they had information about other Ukrtelecom employees. According to him, Aitivts was asked to carry out hacker attacks, provide information about the location of military facilities, and photos of air defense deployments. Therefore, in order to get rid of him, he uploaded a traditional telephony connection diagram, which, in his opinion, did not affect anything, and also uploaded information from various public sources and YouTube, regarding the defense of Kyiv, the interrogation of prisoners, and the address of a military unit that is on Wikipedia.

In addition, according to the traitor, he reported that it was impossible to carry out hacker attacks through him, so they cut ties with him for a month and a half to two months.

Then he was asked to provide photographs of a military facility located in the Troyeshchyna region. He went to the CHPP, where there were three checkpoints that he did not photograph, wrote down the coordinates of the land near the checkpoint, which were covered with a camouflage net, and reported that there were air defenses there that he did not see. In his correspondence, he transmitted information that, in his opinion, was meaningless and did not concern the defense, security, or territorial integrity of Ukraine.

He also showed that he provided information because he was worried about the safety of his family, and did not contact the law enforcement agencies of Ukraine because he was afraid. The communication lasted from November 2023 to April 2024.

What did the court decide?

A communications engineer from Aitivka who worked for Ukrtelecom was sentenced on July 16 to 15 years in prison with confiscation of all property owned by him.

The verdict may be appealed to the Kyiv Court of Appeal through the Dniprovsky District Court of Kyiv within 30 days from the date of its announcement, and the convicted person within the same period from the moment of receiving a copy of the verdict.

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