A former high-ranking Ukrainian intelligence officer was sentenced to life in prison on June 25 after being convicted of high treason for passing state secrets to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), prosecutors announced.
Colonel Dmytro Kozyura, the former chief of staff of the Security Service of Ukraine’s (SBU) Anti-Terrorist Center, was found guilty by the Shevchenkivskyy District Court in Kyiv. The sentence, handed down under martial law provisions, also included a conviction for illegal handling of weapons and explosives.
A Long-Running Russian Operation
According to evidence presented at trial, Kozyura was first recruited by Russia’s FSB in Vienna, Austria, in March 2018. A career SBU officer with access to the country’s most sensitive state secrets, he maintained continuous contact with his Russian handlers through an intermediary, personally signing coded messages to maintain operational security.
For years, Kozyura’s treason lay dormant. But after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, his handlers reactivated him as an active asset. By December 2024, the FSB had resumed direct contact, tasking him with systematically gathering intelligence from inside the very agency responsible for countering Russian espionage.
What He Passed to Moscow
Prosecutors detailed a sweeping betrayal that spanned the most sensitive domains of Ukraine’s national security. During 2024 and 2025, Kozyura systematically transmitted information about the consequences of Russian missile strikes on civilian and military targets in Kyiv, including exact casualty counts of wounded soldiers and civilians. He passed the locations of SBU command posts and military units, official classified documents, and analytical materials produced by Ukraine’s intelligence apparatus.
The espionage went further. Kozyura also handed over documents marked “secret” detailing Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, particularly its gas transportation system, along with plans to strengthen air defense coverage at those facilities. The FSB additionally tasked him with collecting personal information about Ukraine’s senior military and political leadership, intelligence that could enable targeted strikes, assassination plots, or future blackmail operations.
Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko stated that Kozyura acted “in exchange for a monetary reward,” receiving financial compensation from his FSB handlers for each batch of classified material.
Operation Rat: The SBU Strikes Back
The SBU’s counterintelligence division, led personally by then-SBU chief Vasyl Malyuk, had been tracking Kozyura for months. In an operation codenamed “Rat,” agents monitored the colonel around the clock, documenting his use of a dedicated safehouse in Kyiv equipped with a separate mobile phone and Wi-Fi router used exclusively for communicating with his FSB handler, identified as Yuriy Shatalov.
Rather than arresting Kozyura immediately, the SBU turned the tables. Before moving in, they fed a massive volume of disinformation through him to Russian forces, flooding the FSB with false intelligence while carefully preventing Kozyura from accessing genuine classified material. The gambit allowed Ukraine to mislead Russian military planners about the locations and capabilities of Ukrainian forces during a critical phase of the war.
On February 12, 2025, Malyuk personally detained Kozyura in a dramatic operation. A photograph of the SBU chief standing alongside the arrested colonel went viral across Ukrainian media, symbolizing the agency’s success in rooting out one of its own.
Cooperation and an Unusual Request
Following his arrest, Kozyura broke down and cooperated extensively with investigators. He admitted to working for the FSB for financial gain and provided detailed accounts of his activities. In a twist that underscored the war’s human complexities, he expressed a desire to be exchanged for Ukrainian prisoners of war held by Russia.
“Even after his arrest, Kozura said he wanted to be exchanged for Ukrainian defenders,” Kravchenko said.
The request was not granted. The court sentenced him to life imprisonment.
A Warning for Traitors
Prosecutor General Kravchenko delivered a stark message at the sentencing: “Anyone who wore Ukrainian shoulder boards and began working for the FSB becomes an enemy of Ukraine. Only the harshest punishment is appropriate for such individuals.”
The case has sent shockwaves through Ukraine’s security establishment. Kozyura was not a low-level asset but a colonel who had spent his career at the heart of the SBU’s counter-terrorism apparatus, holding responsibility for coordinating national security responses. His recruitment in Vienna, years before the full-scale war, demonstrates the FSB’s long-term approach to penetrating Ukraine’s institutions, planting agents and waiting years, even a decade, before activating them.
Ukraine has exposed and prosecuted numerous Russian agents since February 2022, but the Kozyura case stands out for the seniority of the officer involved and the brazenness of the operation. The life sentence serves as both a measure of justice and a deterrent to any remaining Russian moles still operating within Ukraine’s ranks.