Russia jails Ukrainian journalist for 12 years for espionage:
By RFE/RL
A Russian court has sentenced Ukrainian journalist Roman Sushchenko to 12 years in prison after convicting him of spying in a case that Kyiv and rights activists say is politically motivated.
At a June 4 hearing, the Moscow City Court found Sushchenko guilty of espionage and sentenced him to 12 years in a strict-regime prison.
Sushchenko, a Paris-based correspondent for the Ukrinform news agency, was detained in Moscow in 2016 on suspicion of collecting classified information.
He pleaded not guilty at the start of his trial in March.
Kyiv, human rights activists, and Western governments say Russia has jailed several Ukrainians on trumped-up, politically motivated charges since Moscow seized the Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 and threw its support behind armed separatists in eastern Ukraine. (w/Rapsinews, Dozhd, and TASS)