Russian businessman Sergei Kabanov was sentenced to 12.5 years in a maximum security colony on charges of treason for smuggling components for anti-aircraft missile systems and radar equipment into the United States. This was reported by TASS with reference to the Public Relations Center of the FSB of Russia.
The Tver Regional Court sentenced Kabanov back in July of this year, but then the details of what became the reason for the criminal case against the businessman were not reported.
According to investigators, the convict organized “on instructions from the American intelligence services a smuggling channel for the supply of Russian military products to the United States.”
The FSB established that Kabanov allegedly “sent products used in missile technology of the Russian Armed Forces to the interests of the American company Victory Procurement Services (Huntsville, Alabama), controlled by the US Department of Defense.” The man, as the investigation noted, arranged the transfer of components in transit through Latvia.
Kabanov himself said that the case against him was related to his work “in the field of aerospace industry development” and relations with the United States.
Mediazona wrote that on the day of the verdict, Kabanov sent a letter to Maria Bovenko, who corresponds with political prisoners from pre-trial detention center No. 1. In it, he commented on the sentence he received: “There is confusion in words and fermentation in my head… A couple of hours ago I arrived from court with a sentence: 12 years and six months of imprisonment in a maximum security colony and one year of restriction of freedom.”
The businessman was arrested in Moscow in 2021. Before his arrest, Kabanov was the general director of TTK Sodruzhestvo, which sold fuel.
In April of the same year, the Lefortovo District Court of Moscow sent Kabanov into custody, and in 2023 he was transferred to the Tver pre-trial detention center-1.
In April 2023, Vladimir Putin signed a law amending the Criminal Code, providing for the introduction of life imprisonment under the article on “high treason.” Previously, the maximum penalty was imprisonment for a term of 20 years. The concept of “treason” includes, among other things, espionage, assistance to a foreign organization in the fight against the security of Russia, and switching to the enemy’s side during a war. The last point applies not only to the military, but also to civilians.
