MOSCOW. June 29 (Interfax) - Moscow's Lefortovsky District Court on Thursday ordered the arrest of a Ukrainian citizen suspected of espionage.
"The court has granted a request of an investigator for selecting a restraining measure for Y.A. Ishchuk in the form of custodial detention until August 28," a court spokesperson told Interfax.
The hearing was held behind closed doors as the case files were marked "top secret."
According to the court's press service, Ishchuk is accused of espionage. If proven guilty, she faces from ten up to 20 years of imprisonment. The Federal Security Service (FSB) is leading the inquiry.
According to the charges, Ishchuk, a foreign national, either gathered and attempted to pass on to a foreign state, or their representatives, information constituting a state secret for use against the security of the Russian Federation; or, gathered for an enemy such information that may be used against Russia's Armed Forces, other troops and fighting groups in conditions of an armed conflict or military actions.
Earlier, the FSB branch in the Lugansk People's Republic (LPR) announced a clampdown on a spy operation in Lugansk, which was carried out since October 2022 by a Ukrainian woman (she was not named) who, "driven by her personal motives, with a view to providing assistance to Ukraine's armed formations, and on instructions from a person acting in the interest of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Directorate, gathered and passed information of a military nature, namely data on LPR militia and Russian troop locations and movements."