Two residents of the Kherson region were convicted of cooperating with the intelligence service of Ukraine

The court sentenced two residents of the Kherson region to imprisonment for up to 20 years in a high-security penal colony for cooperation with the intelligence service of Ukraine. This was announced on June 27 by the press service of the Southern District Military Court.

In 2022, Alexander Gazda, after communicating with a Ukrainian intelligence officer in Kiev-controlled territory, joined a terrorist community. It is specified that his duties included, among other things, transportation and storage of explosives in the Kherson region, participation in terrorist acts, attacks on military personnel and law enforcement officers of the Russian Federation.

Andrey Matienko also joined Gazda's activities and began to carry out the tasks of the head of the organization. It is reported that he transported explosive devices and handed them to Gazda.

According to the press service of the Southern District Military Court, the criminal activities of the intruders were stopped by law enforcement officers in September 2022, when the men planned to undermine a man who collaborated with representatives of the military-civil administration of Kherson and Russian law enforcement agencies.

The court found the defendants guilty and sentenced Gazda to 20 years in prison, Matienko to 11 years.

"The verdict has not entered into legal force and can be appealed by the parties to the Military Court of Appeal," the agency's material says.

Earlier, on June 26, law enforcement officers detained in St. Petersburg an accomplice of the Ukrainian special services, who was investigating the places of residence of the Russian military in order to commit terrorist attacks against them. A criminal case was opened against a 48-year-old Russian woman under Part 3 of Article 205.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("Complicity in the commission of a terrorist act"), she was given a preventive measure in the form of detention.