The Southern District Military Court has handed down sentences in two cases involving the transfer of information to Ukraine about Russian military personnel. According to the court’s press service, 21-year-old Makeyevka native Nikita Kovalchuk was sentenced to 23 years in prison, while 36-year-old Melitopol resident Oksana Ptakhina received 18 years in a general-regime penal colony.
Kovalchuk was found guilty of aiding terrorism, participating in a terrorist community, illegal handling of explosives, and treason. The court ruled that he must serve the first five years in prison, with the remainder of the term in a maximum-security penal colony. He was also fined 550,000 rubles.
According to the prosecution, in December 2024 Kovalchuk, while in the occupied part of Donetsk region, contacted a representative of Ukrainian intelligence and, in exchange for money, passed along coordinates of sites in Makeyevka where Russian troops were stationed. Then, on January 9, 2025, he filmed the area near the military enlistment office in Makeyevka’s Tsentralno-Horodskyi district and allegedly sent the footage to an officer of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, the HUR.
Investigators say that several days later he agreed to help prepare the bombing of a Defense Ministry vehicle in Donetsk. On January 21, Kovalchuk went to a cache containing explosives, retrieved the device, and was then detained by Russian security officers.
Ptakhina was convicted of a group terrorist act, financing terrorism, and participation in a terrorist community. According to investigators, the case stemmed from her contact with a relative who was allegedly cooperating with Ukrainian intelligence. Ptakhina allegedly suggested that another relative pass her information on where Russian troops were located in the region, as well as details on civilian and military infrastructure and on state and municipal institutions in Zaporizhzhia region. The court press service said she then relayed that information to a Ukrainian security service officer from March to May 2022 and again in September 2023.
As Mediazona noted, in June 2025 Russia’s financial monitoring agency added Oksana Ptakhina to its registry of people facing terrorism-related charges; her older brother Aleksandr was listed alongside her. Nikita Kovalchuk was added to the same registry in October 2025.