A 76-year-old former leader of the Murmansk Communists has been accused of spying for Ukraine

In Russia, security forces have charged 76-year-old Gennady Stepakhno, the former deputy chairman of the Murmansk Regional Duma and former head of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) faction, with treason. 

According to the FSB, the politician, who positioned himself as an opponent of the war, allegedly collaborated with Ukrainian military intelligence. The security service claims that he used his position to collect and transmit information about the regional government’s activities and local engineering facilities.

According to local sources, the basis for the criminal prosecution may have been his transmission of information to a relative abroad regarding the construction of a pharmaceutical plant with Indian participation.

The court has already remanded Stepakhno into custody. However, news of his arrest first emerged in early October. The defendant is one of the longest-serving Communist deputies in the region, having served for four consecutive terms.

Source: Interfax.

In the temporarily occupied territory of Zaporizhzhia Oblast, a Russian occupation court sentenced a local school employee to 13 years in a strict-regime penal colony. The man was accused of spying for Ukraine.

The Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, sentenced four residents of occupied Melitopol in a case involving explosions and assassination attempts against representatives of the occupying authorities. Ihor Garanin, 38, received a life sentence, while the other three defendants were each sentenced to 25 years in a penal colony. During the trial, all four claimed they had been subjected to torture and pressure by investigators.