Russian citizen in Lithuania sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage
Russian citizen Nikolai Filipchenko has been sentenced by the district court of Vilnius (Lithuania) to 10 years in prison on charges of espionage, Delfi news agency reports.
According to investigators, Filipchenko, who was detained in Lithuania in 2015, is an employee of the Russian FSB.
The Lithuanian Prosecutor General's Office detained him on a transit train during a trip through Lithuania from the Kaliningrad region to Belarus. The Russian citizen, according to the Prosecutor's Office, acted as part of an organized group.
The Prosecutor's Office asked the court to sentence the Russian to 10.5 years in prison. According to the prosecution, he had been recruiting Lithuanians for espionage on behalf of the Russian Federation as an employee of the FSB since 2011. In particular, the Prosecutor's Office believes that Filipchenko tried, together with other persons, to recruit officials from the Lithuanian State Security Department to install listening devices in the office of the President of the Republic Dalia Grybauskaitė.
Referencing the Russian Embassy in Vilnius, TASS has reported that the Russian diplomatic mission "has been most directly engaged in" the matter of its compatriot since the moment of the Filipchenko's detention.