Another Man Arrested In Crimea Accused Of Spying For Ukraine

Russian-imposed authorities in Ukraine's Crimea have arrested a man on charges of spying for Kyiv, the second person detained for alleged espionage on the peninsula since April.

The Kyiv district court in the Crimean capital, Simferopol, said on June 24 that it sent the man, whose identity was not disclosed, to pretrial detention until August 21, after charging him with collecting data on the flights of Russian military planes for Ukrainian intelligence.

The Federal Security Service (FSB) said earlier in the day that it apprehended the man suspected of using special devices equipped with antennas and radio receivers for a long period of time to collect classified data and transfer it to Ukraine.

No further details of the case were made public.

Russia occupied Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March 2014, sending in troops and staging a referendum denounced as illegitimate by at least 100 countries after Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted amid a wave of public protests.

Since then, Russia has arrested dozens of people in Crimea on charges including extremism, terrorism, and espionage.

The announcement comes three days after a court in Moscow extended the pretrial detention of a Russian national detained in April in Crimea on espionage charges.

Moscow's Lefortovo district court said on June 21 that Yevgeny Petrushin was transferred from Crimea to the Russian capital last week.

According to the court, Petrushin was arrested on April 21 in the Crimean city of Sevastopol.

The FSB said in April that its officers had detained a person who "passed classified information about Russia's Black Sea Fleet to Ukrainian military intelligence."

Rights groups have said that, after imposing its control over the peninsula, Moscow aggressively moved to prosecute Ukrainian activists and anyone who questions the seizure.

Russia also backs separatists in a war against Ukrainian government forces that has killed more than 13,200 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014.

With reporting by TASS and Interfax