DONETSK. Nov 15 (Interfax) - A resident of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) has been sentenced to 11 years for spying for Ukrainian intelligence for two months in 2017, the DPR Prosecutor General's Office said in a statement.
"Nazarenko I.F. was sentenced to 11 years in a high-security penal colony. The sentence has entered into effect," the statement said.
Nazarenko was charged in the DPR with "agreeing to share information about persons serving in the DPR militia with an employee of a foreign intelligence service during passport control at a Ukrainian checkpoint" in early 2017, it said.
"From May to June 2017, Nazarenko, acting deliberately in his place of work as part of a mission from the foreign intelligence service, used the camera on his cell phone to photograph documents confirming that individuals were engaged in military service," the statement said. He shared the photographs with employees of the foreign intelligence service, it said.
On October 12, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko said, commenting on reports that a number of sentences had recently been handed down to people held in the territory of Donbas outside Kyiv's control, that "it is a necessary part of the process" of the pending prisoner swap between Ukraine, the self-proclaimed Donbas republics, and Russia.
A "35 for 35" prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine took place on September 7.
Dates for the next exchange have not been disclosed as of yet.