High Treason Conviction for Ukrainian man who Photographed Military Facilities for Russians

The court found 47-year-old Vladislav Kozeev guilty of high treason, who photographed military facilities in the Lviv region and sent them to a Russian.

Source: “court reporter“

Details: On May 16, a panel of judges of the Zheleznodorozhny District Court of the city of Lvov sentenced him to life imprisonment with confiscation of property.

Prosecutor Taras Kovalchuk proposed to impose the most severe punishment, because the accused, in addition to the assignments received, independently searched for information for ideological reasons and passed it on to the Russians.

Kozeev did not admit his guilt, saying that he did not do what is written in the charge.

Kozeev has Ukrainian citizenship, but was born in the city of Ulan-Ude, the capital of the Republic of Buryatia of the Russian Federation. In 2008-2010, he was conditionally convicted of fraud – embezzlement of 3,600 hryvnia. He deceived an acquaintance that he was borrowing money either to buy a land plot, or to buy a sofa for an apartment, because he intended to receive guests.

On May 20, 2022, he was detained at his parents’ house, from the windows of which he took some photos for the Russians, since it is not far from the railway tracks.

After a full-scale invasion in May 2022, Kozeev sent information to Russian representatives about the location of military facilities and the movements of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as the coordinates of critical infrastructure facilities in the Lviv region, including five bridges. He also recorded the consequences of rocket attacks on Lviv on his own phone. In total, we are talking about 25 episodes of information transfer.

Kozeev sent the collected information to Telegram to a user signed with the “$” symbol. As a result of covert investigative search actions, it was established that the Russian Sergey Varin uses this pseudonym.

Only a part of the correspondence was found on the seized phone, since the defendant used the auto-delete function in the messenger.

With the help of special programs, investigators were able to restore deleted pictures on Kozeev’s phone, which he probably also sent to the Russians. This is a photo of the consequences of a missile attack on Lviv, a military unit and military equipment in one of the villages in the Lviv region, a training center of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, an oil depot, a bridge, etc.

From the contents of the phone, it is seen that Kozzev loved communist and Russian symbols, kept photographs marked Z. He was subscribed to Russian telegram channels: Solovyov Live, Madurov, Radio Sputnik, Sladkov +, Margarita Simonyan, Kadyrov 95.

On the Solovyov Live telegram channel, the defendant asked whether the Russians would fight in Lvov. He expressed his concern about this in correspondence with other users, including subscriber Sasha Bryansk.

Before the start of the big war in Ukraine, Kozeev periodically traveled to Russia and worked there. Actively used Russian applications: Sberbank, Wallet, Rosneft, Avto.ru.

There are many Russian numbers on his phone, including employees of the Ministries of Internal and Foreign Affairs, the migration service. Application forms for issuing a residence permit were also found downloaded from the website of the Moscow migration center.

There are many Russian numbers on his phone, including employees of the Ministries of Internal and Foreign Affairs, the migration service. Application forms for issuing a residence permit were also found downloaded from the website of the Moscow migration center.

Kozeev’s phone contained a photo of a letter from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation in 2021. It is known from the document that the man wanted to get a passport of a Russian citizen.

He also corresponded about his citizenship with the former chairman of the LNPR party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

In the debate, the lawyer tried to convince the court that Kozeev probably ceased to be a citizen of Ukraine and therefore he could not be tried for high treason.

The case was heard by the court for more than six months. But in the end, Kozeev did not want to give his own explanation of what happened, saying that he did not have enough time to talk with a lawyer and agree on a position.

The court refused to adjourn, concluding that the defendant was retracting his testimony. Then the defender defender Rostislav Dol challenged the presiding judge, allegedly for her bias, but the application was not satisfied.

In the debate, Kozeev asked to be acquitted. The lawyer spoke about the incorrect qualification of the prosecution. They say that he does not see treason in Kozeev’s actions, but at most unauthorized dissemination of information about the movement of the Armed Forces of Ukraine under martial law.