The Russian spotter turned out to be a 63-year-old security guard at a local driving school. He also enlisted his 17-year-old school-age son to cooperate with the invaders. According to the Security Service of Ukraine, the teenager, acting on his father’s instructions, scouted and photographed the facades of businesses that he believed could be fulfilling defense orders.
Among the main targets of interest were private companies involved in the production and repair of aerial and ground-based unmanned systems. The student sent the collected photographs, tagged with geolocations on Google Maps, to his father via a messaging app. The man systematized the information and prepared it in report form for Russian intelligence.
At the same time, the father moved around the city on his own, recording the addresses of buildings near which he noticed concentrations of Ukrainian troops and equipment of the defense forces.
SBU officers detained the suspects and seized phones containing information about the locations of the sites. In addition, law enforcement officials found an anonymous chat on the man’s phone with a “handler” from Russia’s GRU.
The 63-year-old man was formally charged under Part 2 of Article 111 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code — high treason committed under martial law. He is being held in custody without the possibility of bail and faces a potential sentence of life imprisonment.
Authorities are currently deciding whether to bring charges against his minor son.