The BBC Russian service has identified two residents of the Amur Region and Primorsky Territory, who were arrested in the spring of 2023 on charges of high treason (Article 275 of the Criminal Code).
On the prosecution of men on charges in transmitting data to China on March 10 and 23 almost at the same time, Baza and Astra reported without indicating the source of the information. Together with a short description of the plot of the cases, they named the names and initials of the men — Lukin I.A. and Yatsenko S.B.
According to the FSB version cited by Astra and Baza, in 2013 Lukin “established confidential cooperation with a personnel officer of the Chinese special services” Yang Shiheng, and in January 2020 he took “his acquaintance” Yatsenko to China. In January-June 2022, the same one collected and handed over to the country's special services «information about nuclear weapons» of Russia.
Astra employees clarified to the BBC that the FSB department for Primorsky Krai initiated the Yatsenko case on February 13, and the department for the Amur Region has been prosecuting Lukin since March 15. The BBC correspondent, having sent letters through the FSIN system, confirmed that the first one was being held in SIZO-1 in Vladivostok, and the second in SIZO-1 of Blagoveshchensk.
37-year-old Ivan Lukin lived in Blagoveshchensk and worked as a commercial director at the AsiaSpetsImport company, which supplies forklifts and spare parts from China. His colleagues did not begin to talk about the fate of the man, explaining that they «do not communicate with him» and «do not know who they are talking about.» He has two children.
Lukin was first detained on February 17, 2023 due to a skirmish with a passerby, for which the court sentenced him to 10 days of arrest under the article on petty hooliganism (20.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses). The Amur resident collided with a passer-by on the shoulder during the day and, according to the police, began to swear and left the place. A passer-by turned to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and Lukin was stopped a few hours later. The man denied in court that he had uttered insults.
Sergei Yatsenko, 45, from Primorye, was also an entrepreneur. The BBC discovered that he was a co-owner of several now-liquidated construction and technology companies. In 2011, the full namesake of a man was tried in Vladivostok in the case of smuggling (Article 188 of the Criminal Code), and in 2018 he went to the court of the city of Artyom because of the debt of a partner, a Chinese citizen.
“Bi-bi- si” failed to confirm in open sources that Lukin and Yatsenko, who lived in neighboring regions, knew each other.
Yang Shiheng, who was mentioned by Baza and Astra, worked in the administration of the city of Heihe, which is located opposite Blagoveshchensk on the other side of the river Amur. He headed the Center for Ensuring the Rights and Interests of Foreign Citizens. Amur journalists advised tourists to contact him in case of problems in Heihe. The official told the BBC that he did not remember either Lukin or Yatsenko, because he had “many Russian acquaintances.”
The FSB representatives did not announce the detention of the Primorye and the Amur resident. The BBC linked this to Chinese President Xi Jinping's March visit to Russia. In total, since the beginning of 2023, 26 new defendants in treason cases have become known — this is more than in the whole of 2022.