A military court in Moscow has sentenced a citizen of Ukraine to 12 years imprisonment for allegedly planning to detonate an explosive device in Russia's Bryansk Oblast, the court's press service announced on Aug. 30.
Russian officials claim that Oleksandr Bobrovitskyi was a member of a saboteur group organized by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).
The man was reportedly asked to detonate an explosive device "at one of the transport or industrial infrastructure facilities" in the region with the goal of undermining Russia's war against Ukraine, the court claimed.
According to the court's statement, Bobrovitskyi arrived in Russia and settled in Bryansk Oblast, but was eventually arrested by Russian law enforcement while extracting a cache containing components of the explosive device.
Bobrovitskyi was convicted on the charges of terrorism and illegal possession and manufacturing of an explosive device and sentenced to 12 years imprisonment and a fine of 550,000 rubles.
The Kyiv Independent could not verify the veracity of the charges as Russia regularly uses trumped-up accusations and lengthy prison sentences to oppress both domestic opposition and Ukrainian citizens in occupied territories or those who otherwise end up in the hands of Russian authorities.
Bryansk Oblast lies at Russia's western border with Belarus and with Ukraine's Chernihiv and Sumy oblasts. Local officials regularly report on drone strikes and shelling from across the Ukrainian border.
Elsa Court
