The Ukrainian was convicted in North Ossetia in a case of espionage.

The court in North Ossetia sentenced a citizen of Ukraine to a long term, finding him guilty of spying on the military.

The case of 34-year-old Igor Hopachenko was considered by the Supreme Court of the republic. The article on espionage (Article 276 of the Criminal Code of Russia) attributed to the man provides for a prison term of ten to twenty years.

The basis for the prosecution of the citizen of Ukraine was materials from the FSB management in North Ossetia and the border management of the agency.

According to the version of the security forces, Igor Hopachenko voluntarily transmitted information about Russian military personnel to Ukrainian special services, namely, data on "the number and location of personnel and military equipment of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in the area of the special military operation," TASS reported.

The agency's message does not provide details of the case and does not specify how the citizen of Ukraine obtained this information. It also does not state whether he agreed with the charges.

The court sentenced Igor Hopachenko to 13 years in a strict regime. The information about Hopachenko's case is absent from the open registry of the Supreme Court of North Ossetia.

In a short operational video published by North Ossetian publications on their Instagram accounts, employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB lead the man down a corridor and then take him into a police van in Vladikavkaz; the person's face is not visible, he is filmed from behind. Judging by the clothing of the people in the video, the recording was made in the summer.

"Caucasian Knot" also reported that in December 2023, the FSB reported the detention of a citizen of Ukraine in North Ossetia on suspicion of espionage, but the name of the arrested person was not disclosed. The security forces claimed that the man "transmitted information about the location and movement routes of military equipment of the RF Armed Forces in the area of the special military operation by sending geographical coordinates, photographs, and video materials," without specifying how he had access to such data.

Since 2022, citizens of Ukraine in various regions of southern Russia have faced criminal prosecution for espionage with similar or analogous formulations. Thus, in January 2024, the Rostov Regional Court sentenced native of Makeevka Alexander Nechaev to 13 years in a colony, finding him guilty of espionage. In February of the same year, it became known that 71-year-old citizen of Ukraine Viktor Demchenko did not live to see the verdict in the case of espionage and participation in a terrorist community – the man died at the end of 2023 from the consequences of a stroke in a Rostov prison hospital.

In August 2024, a court in Krasnodar sentenced citizen of Ukraine Evgeny Monastirev to 11 years in a colony, finding him guilty of espionage – it was claimed that he collected information about critical and transport infrastructure in Kuban. In June 2026, the Southern District Military Court received the case of a 62-year-old Ukrainian who lived in Krasnodar Krai: the accusation linked him to strikes on "objects of the fuel and energy complex" in Tuapse.