A Ukrainian lawyer has reportedly been sentenced to eight years behind bars for espionage and attempting to illegally obtain and export military goods.
Igor Kiyashko was detained this spring in Nizhny Novgorod, 400 kilometers east of Moscow, and charged with espionage and arms smuggling in June. Reports said he was accused of trying to purchase engine parts for MiG-29 fighter jets and of collecting classified documents related to the S-400 surface-to-air missile system at the request of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).
Nizhny Novgorod’s court system spokesman Valery Lazarev told Interfax Wednesday that Kiyashko would be spending his eight years in “maximum security” prison. Interfax also cited Lazarev as saying that the hearing was closed “due to secret information.”
The Kommersant business daily reported Wednesday that Kiyashko did not plan to appeal the verdict. The outlet reported that Kiyashko had not admitted to collecting information about the S-400 system, but that he had not denied his intention to pass on the MiG-29 engine parts to the SBU.
Russia last month deployed S-400 battalions to Crimea, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Reuters contributed reporting to this article.
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