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The Kyiv Independent’s contributor Ignatius Ivlev-Yorke spent a day with a mobile team from the State Emergency Service in Nikopol in the south of Ukraine as they responded to relentless drone, artillery, and mortar strikes from Russian forces just across the Dnipro River. Nikopol is located across from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in the city of Enerhodar.

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Italy sentences ex-navy officer to 20 years over spying for Russia

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Italy sentences ex-navy officer to 20 years over spying for Russia
The Russian embassy in Rome, Italy, 2021. (Andreas Solaro/AFP via Getty Images)

A court in Rome sentenced on Jan. 19 a former Italian navy officer to 20 years in prison for spying for Russia, the ANSA news agency reported.

Frigate captain Walter Biot was found guilty of espionage and bribery after being allegedly caught handing over secret data to a Russian embassy official in March 2021.

According to the charges, Biot wanted to sell a flash drive with secret data for 5,000 euros ($5,447) to Russian naval attache Dmitry Ostroukhov. The Italian officer was detained during the attempted handover.

The memory card reportedly contained 181 photographs of documents and images from Biot's computer, including 47 marked as "NATO secret" and 57 as "NATO confidential."

This is already the second sentence handed to Biot, as a military tribunal sentenced him to 30 years in prison in March 2023.

Italy expelled two Russian diplomats in 2021 in retaliation for the scandal.

Italian parliament’s lower house backs prolonging military support for Ukraine
The Italian parliament’s lower house voted in favor of prolonging defense assistance for Ukraine as the besieged country braces for another year of war with Russia, Italian media reported on Jan. 10.
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Martin Fornusek

Senior News Editor

Martin Fornusek is a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. He has previously worked as a news content editor at the media company Newsmatics and is a contributor to Euromaidan Press. He was also volunteering as an editor and translator at the Czech-language version of Ukraïner. Martin studied at Masaryk University in Brno, Czechia, holding a bachelor's degree in security studies and history and a master's degree in conflict and democracy studies.

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