By Andrew Osborn
(Reuters) – An engineer at a factory that makes tanks for Russia’s war in Ukraine was jailed for 16 years on Tuesday after being convicted of committing state treason by passing military secrets to Kyiv, weeks after his wife received a similar sentence.
The court in Sverdlovsk region said Danil Mukhametov, who worked at the Uralvagonzavod tank factory, had partially admitted his guilt after being accused of passing unspecified technical military information to Ukraine’s intelligence services.
The court released a photograph of Mukhametov, 32, listening in a glass courtroom cage as the judge read out his sentence, which he will serve in a maximum-security penal colony.
His wife Viktoria, who worked at the same tank factory, Russia’s largest, was handed a 12-1/2 year sentence last month after being convicted of selling technical blueprints to Ukrainian officials for 100,000 roubles or just over $1,000.
She and her husband were arrested in March 2023 by the FSB security service, which published a video of the arrest. It showed her being asked what they planned to do with the money, to which she replied: “Just to live.”
Located in the city of Nizhny Tagil around 1,400 km (870 miles) east of Moscow, the Uralvagonzavod factory has been sanctioned by the West.
The factory, which is run by a state conglomerate controlled by one of President Vladimir Putin’s allies, has publicly said it produces T-90M battle tanks and modernises T-72B3M tanks. According to the Russian Defence Ministry, it plays a crucial role in supplying tanks for Moscow’s war in Ukraine, something the authorities call a special military operation.
Earlier this year, a Russian court convicted Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich of espionage after accusing him of gathering secret information about the same factory.
The U.S. journalist, his newspaper and the U.S. government denied the spying charge. Gershkovich was released on Aug. 1 in a major East-West prisoner swap.
The number of treason cases opened by the authorities in Russia has increased sharply since the start of the war, with Putin urging his intelligence agencies to up their game when it comes to catching foreign spies and agents.
(Reporting by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
