Russian sham court in Luhansk ‘sentences’ OSCE employee to 13 years in prison
According to the agency, Shabanov was detained in mid-April in the occupied territory of Luhansk Oblast allegedly for “transferring classified information to representatives of foreign special services.”
He served as a security assistant at the Stakhanov forward patrol mission base.
The Russian proxy court claimed the OSCE officer had allegedly been recruited by “a U.S. CIA agent in Ukraine who previously worked for Ukraine’s SBU security service.”
It said Shabanov had undergone “special training in the United States” and “gathered information on the movement of military equipment and weapons, as well as on the movement of personnel of the LPR units” for almost six months.
The OSCE has not yet reacted to the “sentence.”
The Special Monitoring Mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe ceased its operations in Ukraine in late April.
The organization explained the move by the fact that it was impossible to reach a consensus at the meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council on March 31 regarding the extension of the mandate of the mission.
Russia is still a member of the organization. The Kremlin blocked the extension of the mission’s mandate, and it expired at the end of June.
It was reported in late July that Russian proxy forces in the Donbas were holding the OSCE representatives captive.
Prior to that, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called for the suspension of Russia’s mandate in the OSCE amid ongoing territorial grabs and attacks on Ukrainian cities.
Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
