A Russian court in the northern Murmansk region has sentenced Russian citizen Artyom Konstantinov to 13 years in prison on charges of “treason“ after establishing contact with a representative of the Ukrainian army. This was announced by the Federal Security Service (FSB), quoted by Agence France-Presse, BTA reports.
According to the service, Konstantinov, born in 2000, expressed his consent to join the Ukrainian armed forces with the intention of subsequently participating in military operations against the Russian army. The court sentenced him to 13 years in prison in a maximum-security penal colony.
The wave of prosecutions for “treason“ in Russia has intensified since the start of the conflict in Ukraine in 2022. Over the past two years, thousands of citizens have been arrested, threatened or convicted for their opposition to the war, AFP notes.