Nikita Zhuravel has been sentenced to 14 years in prison after being convicted of state treason for sharing information about Russian military movements with Ukraine. This includes sending footage of a freight train carrying warplanes and details about a car linked to a Russian military base to a representative of Ukrainian intelligence.
Russia Sentences Quran Arsonist to 14 Years for Spying for Ukraine
According to AFP, a Russian man who is already serving a prison sentence for burning a copy of the Quran has been found guilty by a court on Monday in a separate treason case and sentenced to 14 years in prison.
The regional court in Volgograd, located in southwestern Russia, convicted 20-year-old Nikita Zhuravel of state treason. He was found guilty of corresponding online with a member of the Security Service of Ukraine and engaging in actions "directed against the security of the Russian Federation."
The office of Russia's Prosecutor General revealed last month that Zhuravel had also been accused of sending footage of a freight train carrying warplanes and information regarding the movements of a car linked to a Russian military base to a representative of Ukrainian intelligence.
Zhuravel's case attracted attention last year when Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov released a video showing his son, Adam, then 15 years old, beating and kicking Zhuravel while he was imprisoned in Chechnya, awaiting trial for the Quran-burning incident in Volgograd, his hometown.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the number of such cases has sharply increased in Russia, with intelligence agencies intensifying their efforts to crack down on suspected foreign spies and agents.
Zhuravel is already serving a 3 1/2-year prison sentence after being convicted of hooliganism by a court in Chechnya in February for publicly burning a Quran in Volgograd.