In the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic, two employees of the OSCE mission were sentenced to 13 years in prison for treason

The Supreme Court of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People's Republic sentenced Dmitry Shabanov and Maksim Petrov, members of the OSCE mission, to 13 years in prison. They were accused of treason. They have ten days to appeal the verdicts.

Dmitry Shabanov worked as a security assistant at the Stakhanov Forward Patrol Base of the OSCE mission. According to the prosecution, in 2016 he was recruited by a former member of the Security Service of Ukraine and CIA resident Andrei Lukashenko.

The investigation claims that from August 2021 to April 2022, Shabanov collected “information about the movements of military equipment and weapons, as well as the movements of personnel of the LPR People’s Militia units.” He allegedly passed the information he received to the CIA representative using a smartphone with a special program, which he was given as an employee of the OSCE mission.

At the same time, the information channel of the authorities of the self-proclaimed LPR - LuganskInformCenter Z - reported on a court decision against another employee of the OSCE mission. Ex-translator of the OSCE mission Maxim Petrov was sentenced to 13 years in prison for treason. According to investigators, he prepared and handed over to his curator from the US Department of Defense Intelligence Agency material constituting a state secret.

The detention of two employees of the Lugansk division of the OSCE for treason became known in mid-April. On April 30, the head of the LPR, Leonid Pasechnik, banned the activities of the mission in the unrecognized republic. Then he accused the OSCE observers of creating a negative image of Russia and the self-proclaimed republics in Europe.

Sources: RBC , LuganskInformCenter Z