A Russian woman has been found guilty of treason after selling ‘blueprints’ from a tank factory she worked in to Ukraine.
Viktoria Mukhametova displayed no emotion as a court in Yekaterinburg, in the Russian Urals, sentenced her to 12 and a half years in a penal colony.
The 24-year-old passed on ‘military and technical data’ to Ukrainian officials in return for 100,000 roubles, or about £980.
Sheworked as a machine operator at UralVagon Factory, the largest battle tank company in the world, which is based in the city of Nizhny Tagil in the Sverdlovsk region.
Mukhametova pleaded guilty to selling the blueprints, which are understood to include technical drawings.
It was more than a year that she and her husband were arrested in March 2023 by the FSB security service.
Her husband, Danil Mukhametov, is also being tried separately on similar charges.
A video of their arrest was published showing her being asked what they planned to do with the money, to which she replied: ‘Just to live.’
When they were detained he was seen being forcefully pinned to the ground by FSB agents.
Earlier this year, Russia convicted Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich of espionage after accusing him of gathering secret information about the same defence company.
The US journalist, his newspaper and the US government denied the spy charge. Gershkovich was released on August 1 in a major East-West prisoner swap.
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