MOSCOW, October 14 /TASS/. The Moscow City Court on Wednesday sentenced Yuri Soloshenko, the former director of Ukraine’s defense plant Znamya (Banner), to six years in a top security jail on espionage charges.
Since the case is strictly confidential, the trial took place behind the closed doors.
Soloshenko, 73, will stay in a pre-trial detention ward pending the sentence to take effect. Ukraine’s consul in Russia was also present in the courtroom.
Soloshenko who has been on pension since 2010 was detained in Moscow in the summer of 2014 on espionage charges.
According to the lawyer, Soloshenko has pleaded guilty of spying for Ukraine in full measure.
The Znamya defense plant that was located in Poltava, northeastern Ukraine, specialized in the production of electrical equipment for air defense means. The enterprise went bankrupt in 2012.
Ukrainian national tried to buy secret components for S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems
Yuri Soloshenko was trying to buy secret components for the S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems when he was detained in Moscow in the summer of 2014, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) press service told TASS on Wednesday.
"FSB employees detained Soloshenko in Moscow in the August of 2014 when he was trying to illegally purchase secret components for the S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems on behalf of the Generator plant and the Nebo Ukrainy (The Sky of Ukraine) Corporation. He planned to use the purchased components for restoration of Ukraine’s air defense means," the FSB said.
"It’s not the first time that Russian security services have thwarted an attempt by separate Ukrainian nationals to buy military products in Russia and smuggle them out of the country. In December 2014, Russia expelled Ukrainian citizen Denis Danchenko who had arrived in Moscow to illegally obtain secret klystron tubes and magnetrons for the S-300 and Buk-M1 anti-aircraft missiles complexes," the FSB public relations center said.