South Ossetian detained on charges of spying for Georgia

South Ossetia’s security services, the KGB, have announced the arrest of an individual on charges of high treason for allegedly passing classified information to Georgia.

According to the KGB, the man, born in 1974, was detained on 21 April and has confessed to the offence.

The security agency also said that the detainee is an employee of a public enterprise and had long maintained contact with Georgia’s State Security Service (SSG).

He allegedly transmitted information concerning the number and deployment of Russian troops stationed in South Ossetia, their redeployment to Ukraine as well as details about the internal politics of Tskhinvali (Tskhinval).

The operation was reportedly conducted in cooperation with Russia’s FSB and the Foreign Intelligence Service of South Ossetia.

No statements have been made by the detained man’s legal counsel.

They added that five more South Ossetians were identified as having ‘been in contact with representatives of the Georgian SSG and passed on information not constituting state secrets’.

These individuals were not deemed to have committed acts falling under article 275 of the Russian criminal code for state treason, but were issued official warnings. The agency stated that the warnings were related to ‘actions that create the conditions for the commission of a crime’.

The authorities did not disclose what information the five accused had shared with Georgia.

According to South Ossetian legislation, state treason and espionage are punishable by 12–20 years of imprisonment. However, individuals who voluntarily report contact with foreign intelligence services and whose actions have not harmed national security may be exempted from prosecution. In such cases, the KGB is required to take steps to ensure their protection.

In August 2023, the KGB reported that it had identified three South Ossetians who had been passing information about the situation in the republic to the ‘intelligence services of a hostile state’. These individuals were issued official warnings against engaging in actions that could lead to a charge of state treason.

In May 2022, the KGB said that a female resident of Tskhinvali had maintained regular contact with Georgian intelligence agents and had provided them with information about the situation in the republic. She was also issued an official warning as the data she transferred was not considered classified and did not pose a threat to national security.

In 2020, the former head of the Presidential Administration, Sergei Lipin, was sentenced to 16 years in prison for state treason. His wife received a sentence of 13 years under the same charge.

In August 2009, the Supreme Court of South Ossetia sentenced a former KGB officer, Major Timur Gutsmazty, to 16 years in prison and handed him a fine of ₽100,000 ($1,200) for treason. Investigators established that Gutsmazty had been recruited by a senior officer of the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs’ counter-intelligence department, Aleksandr Medzmariashvili, and had passed on military-related information.

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For ease of reading, we choose not to use qualifiers such as ‘de facto’, ‘unrecognised’, or ‘partially recognised’ when discussing institutions or political positions within Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and South Ossetia. This does not imply a position on their status.