A Russian judge has sentenced a Romanian man to 15 years in prison after he was found guilty of spying for Ukraine, court officials said Thursday.
Prosecutors in the southern Krasnodar region said the man contacted Ukrainian military intelligence in November 2024 and later used a quadcopter to gather information about the location of an air defense system in the resort city of Sochi.
“He was sentenced to 15 years in prison, to be served in a maximum-security penal colony,” the regional court’s press service said in a statement.
Romania’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that one of its citizens had been convicted in Russia.
A ministry spokesman, Andrei Tarnea, said Bucharest had been monitoring the case since December 2024.
“We have repeatedly requested the Russian side, both in Bucharest and Moscow, to facilitate access to the Romanian citizen in order to provide consular assistance,” Tarnea said in a statement.
“To date, the Russian side has not responded to our repeated requests.”
Russia has arrested dozens of its own citizens and foreigners on accusations of spying for Ukraine since launching its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
