Ukrainian Roman Sushchenko was sentenced to 12 years in prison on espionage charges.

The Moscow City Court sentenced Ukrainian Roman Sushchenko to 12 years in a strict regime colony on charges of espionage. Mediazona writes about this with reference to the secretary of the court, Ulyana Solopova.

The Ukrainian journalist was detained on September 30, 2016 in Moscow. According to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, he came to Moscow to visit close relatives. For the past six years, Sushchenko had lived in Paris, where he worked as a correspondent for the Ukrinform agency.

Novaya Gazeta wrote , citing an unnamed source, that on the day of Sushchenko's arrival, his old acquaintance handed over a hard drive to the journalist. After that, the correspondent was immediately detained by the FSB. According to the FSB, Sushchenko is an employee of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. The department believes that the journalist purposefully collected secret information about the work of the Russian military and the National Guard.

Sushchenko himself denies all allegations. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine from the very beginning called the process falsified and, after the verdict, protested against the court's decision.

• Convicted Ukrainian director Oleg Sentsov announced an indefinite hunger strike on May 14, the condition for ending which he set the release of "all Ukrainian political prisoners." Earlier, we published a list of prisoners associated with Ukraine, whose cases are most likely politically motivated. Roman Sushchenko is included in this list.