MOSCOW. Dec 14 (Interfax-AVN) - The Moscow military district court on Tuesday sentenced Igor Vyalkov, a former the Federal Security Service officer, to 10 years of imprisonment.
An Interfax correspondent reported from the courtroom that the court found him guilty of spying for the benefit of Estonia.
The court established that Vyalkov, working for the Russian Federal Border Guard Service, at his own initiative contacted Zoya Tint, an agent of Estonian special services, and supplied her with information about three Russian intelligence officers. The court regarded the actions as high treason in the form of espionage.
However, it dropped charges of illegally collecting and storing information constituting a state secret because the prosecution failed to prove that the information had been transferred.
It also relieved Vyalkov of criminal responsibility for illegal border crossing over the expiration of the time limitation.
In court Vyalkov flatly denied his guilt saying that he was trying to recruit Tint single-handed and planned to detain her on the border.
However, the court declined the claim as groundless because neither Vyalkov's plans, nor the plans of his section contained any mention of detaining Tint.
It recognized that Vyalkov had collected ample information about the operational work of the Federal Border Service, the means and methods of operations of the Main Intelligence Department, the forms of interaction with border and special services in foreign states and also information about secret KGB collaborators in Estonia.