Russia sentences man in Crimea to 15 years for treason

Russia on Wednesday sentenced a man in annexed Crimea to 15 years in prison on treason charges, accusing him of spying for Ukraine, in the latest such imprisonment.

Moscow has regularly handed out heavy sentences to those it accuses of spying for Ukraine during its nearly three-year offensive, with such cases especially common in the Black Sea peninsula, which was seized by Russia from Ukraine in 2014.

The Moscow-led local prosecutor's office said a 45-year-old unnamed man had sent the locations of Russian air defence units in the city of Kerch -- on the eastern edge of Crimea -- to Ukrainian intelligence in September of last year.

"The court established that the man offered cooperation to a representative of Ukraine's security service," the prosecutor's office said on Telegram.

"He was found guilty of high treason" and sentenced to 15 years, it added.

The RIA Novosti state-run news agency said the man worked on railway tracks before his arrest.

The case, as has become common practice in Russia, was heard behind closed doors.

Also on Wednesday, a court in Saint Petersburg sentenced two Russians to nine years in prison for railway sabotage.

The two men were accused of setting fire to relay cabinets in 2023 in exchange for 8,000 rubles ($75 at today's exchange rate) offered by an unidentified person who they communicated with online, the court said in a statement, also on Telegram.

Russia's vast railway network, used to move troops and equipment, has been targeted since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 in a spate of arson and sabotage attacks that Moscow says are orchestrated by Kyiv.