SIMFEROPOL. Oct 15 (Interfax) - The Supreme Court of Crimea has sentenced a man accused of spying for a foreign state to 12 years of imprisonment at a high-security facility, the court's press service told Interfax on Friday.
The hearing was held behind closed doors because the case files contain official secrets. The defendant has not been named. He was charged under Russian Criminal Code Article 276 (espionage).
"The defendant has been found guilty of passing information constituting an official secret to a representative of a foreign state. He has been sentenced to 12 years of imprisonment at a high-security correctional facility," the press service said.
A source told Interfax that the defendant was a member of a Ukrainian intelligence group apprehended in the spring 2020.
In April of last year, the Federal Security Service (FSB) said that its officers in Crimea had thwarted a Ukrainian sabotage reconnaissance group which included "a servicewoman of the Russian Armed Forces suspected of providing in 2017-2018 Ukrainian military intelligence representatives with official secret information she was entrusted with and a Ukrainian citizen suspected of carrying out espionage for the Ukrainian intelligence service."
According to the FSB, the agents were recruited and handled by "the Kherson-based head of department in the Ukrainian military intelligence, Col. Oleg Akhmedov."
"The Ukrainian military intelligence had been planning a number of subversive terrorist attacks on social and military infrastructure" in Russia, the FSB said.
In June 2021, the Southern District Military Court (Rostov-on-Don) sentenced a servicewoman, Tatyana Kuzmenko, after she confessed to treason, to eight years of imprisonment with a two-year deferral until her child (born 2009) reaches 14 years of age. Her case was fast-tracked and heard behind closed doors due to it containing "top secret" files.
According to a Kommersant newspaper report in May 2020, Kuzmenko was living with her Ukrainian partner Kostyantyn Shiringa. "According to the inquiry, he and his partner, a Russian servicewoman from Feodosiya, were part of a group which operated on the peninsula and was handled by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. Mr. Shiringa denies any contact with the Ukrainian intelligence service, claiming that he was framed by his spouse, who was charged with treason for gathering information on the armament and troop numbers of an air defense missile regiment," it said.