A Russian military court announced today that it has sentenced a man accused of allegedly sabotaging a railway line in 2023 in Crimea, a peninsula annexed by Russia ten years ago on behalf of Ukraine, to 22 years in prison.
Pavel Levchenko was accused of having caused “two explosions during the passage of freight trains”, the Southern District Military Court said in a statement.
The court, based in Rostov-on-Don, in southwestern Russia, said that Levchenko was planning further sabotage and that he was acting on orders from Ukraine.
According to the court, Levchenko was recruited and trained by the Ukrainian security services (SBU) and then sent to Crimea to commit “acts of terrorism”.
Russia annexed the Ukrainian peninsula in 2014.
Pavel Levchenko was found guilty and sentenced to 22 years in prison, according to the court.
Since 2022, Russian authorities have been increasing the number of arrests on charges of “espionage”, “treason”, “sabotage”, “extremism” and “discrediting the army”, often resulting in very heavy prison sentences.
But trials are often held behind closed doors and few details of the cases are made public.
Since February 2022, thousands of people have been punished, threatened or arrested because of their opposition to the conflict.
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