DONETSK/KYIV. Oct 22 (Interfax) - Ukrainian journalist Stanislav Aseyev has been sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment in a high-security penal colony on charges of spying and extremist activities in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), the DPR Prosecutor General's Office said.
"From March 2015 to May 11, 2017, Aseyev, being a member of an extremist community, sent via e-mails to participants of the community materials prepared by him and covering the activities of the DPR authorities, law enforcement agencies and military formations in a negative light for material rewards," the DPR Prosecutor General's Office said on its website.
Additionally, according to the Prosecutor General's Office, Aseyev "carrying out an objective by the foreign intelligence service, collected by means of visual surveillance information about the deployment sites of the DPR militia," shared them with representatives of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) using the Internet and "under the pretense of journalist activities looked for social network users with a pro-Ukrainian attitude wishing to carry out foreign intelligence task and persuaded them to collect and share information of a military and other nature, which could have been used against the republic's security."
In August, the Appeals Chamber of the DPR Supreme Court found Aseyev guilty of a number of crimes such as organizing an extremist community, spying, incitement to spying, public calls for extremist activities, and public calls for activities aimed at violation of territorial integrity, the Prosecutor General's Office said.
"The defendant was sentenced to imprisonment in a high-security penal colony for 15 years with the deprivation of the right to work as a journalist for two years and six months and custodial restraint for one year," it said.
As reported, Aseyev, residing in the territory of the Donetsk region outside Kyiv's control, published articles in Ukrainian media using the pseudonym "Stanislav Vasin." It emerged that the blogger was missing on June 11, 2017, and Aseyev had been in contact for the last time on June 2.
On June 16, 2017, the DPR authorities confirmed that Aseyev, who went missing in Donetsk, was detained on espionage charges.