The Krasnoselsky District Court of St. Petersburg has sent Ukrainian citizen Igor Bondarchuk to a pretrial detention center for two months on suspicion of espionage (Article 276 of the Criminal Code). This was reported by the joint press service of the city's courts.
The investigation suggests that Bondarchuk voluntarily agreed to cooperate with the SBU representative and provide him with information about the departments of state institutions and authorities in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region. This information, the security forces believe, «can be used against the security of Russia.»
The report says that Bondarchuk was detained yesterday, July 30. The press service of the courts clarified to Mediazona that the arrest was in person.
At the same time, the name of the suspect was soon removed from the press release on the telegram channel. The case file has not been published on the website of the Krasnoselsky District Court.
The article on espionage assumes that the accused is a foreign citizen. So, in March in St. Petersburg, Ukrainian citizen Vladislav Sugakov was arrested on espionage charges. In May, the St. Petersburg City Court received a case of espionage against Viktor Rudenko.
Last summer, 27-year-old Ukrainian Ivan Zabavsky was arrested in St. Petersburg on espionage charges. Mediazona learned that he lived in Kharkov and worked in a cafe, while his mother Marina remained in the village of Tavolzhanka, which was occupied by Russia in 2022.
In September 2022, the woman decided to leave for Russia due to the approaching fighting, and her son, who did not know about this, followed her to Tavolzhanka under the guise of a driver with humanitarian aid. Neighbors told Marina Zabavskaya that they saw him being taken away by the military. Since then, she has not known what happened to her son. In May 2023, the Russian Defense Ministry responded to her request and reported that he “is in Russia” and was “detained for opposing a special military operation.”
«Vanya went after you.» A year ago, a Ukrainian went to save his mother from an occupied village near Kharkov, and now a court in St. Petersburg has arrested him as a spy