MOSCOW (Reuters) -A Russian military court on Friday jailed a Russian-Italian man for 29 years after finding him guilty of various terrorism-related charges and of blowing up a freight train at Ukraine’s behest, Russia’s RIA state news agency reported.
It said a military court in the western Russian city of Ryazan had ordered that Ruslan Sidiki serve nine years of his sentence in a prison and the rest in a maximum security prison camp.
RIA cited Sidiki’s lawyer as saying his client had partially admitted his guilt. Russian-language news outlets have in the past reported that Sidiki admitted his actions, but denied intent to harm anyone or acting on anyone else’s orders.
He viewed his actions as sabotage rather than terrorism and himself as a prisoner of war, those reports said.
State prosecutors had accused Sidiki of using a home-made bomb to blow up a freight train in November 2023, causing 19 wagons to derail, and of a drone attack on an airbase earlier the same year.
Russia’s FSB security service said in a statement at the time that Sidiki had been recruited by Ukrainian military intelligence while in Istanbul in 2023 and had then received sabotage training in Latvia before returning to Russia.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.
(Reporting by Andrew OsbornEditing by Andrew Heavens)
