A Russian worker in the warship sector has been convicted of high treason for passing military secrets to the CIA

The Russian security services announced Friday that a Russian citizen working in the warships sector was indicted for high treason for passing military secrets to the CIA.

Yuri Yeshchenko was sentenced to 13 years in prison in a remote penal camp for trying to provide the United States with information about Russian weapons systems, according to what the Federal Security Service “FSB” said in a statement on its website.

The statement said that Yeshchenko “decided, for his personal benefit, to transmit information to the United States about the promising developments of a Russian military-industrial complex”.

He added that Yeshchenko worked in the closed town of Sveromosk in the Arctic, at a center that provided the ships of the Russian Northern Fleet with electronic systems for wireless devices.

The Federal Security Service stated that between 2015 and 2017, Yeshchenko had copied documents containing classified information for the fleet’s weapons systems before he contacted the CIA in early 2019.

In July of that year, he was arrested by the FSB in the Bryansk region in southern Russia while he was trying to hand over the documents.

The Russian Federal Security Service said that Yeshchenko pleaded guilty to the Bryansk Regional Court on Tuesday and expressed his “remorse”.

The announcement of espionage cases in Russia has increased in recent years.

Last June, a Russian court sentenced former US Marine Paul Whelan to 16 years in prison as well in a penal camp after being convicted of espionage.