Russian jailed 18 years over enlistment office bomb plot

Since the start of its offensive in Ukraine in 2022, Russia has cracked down on dissent and protest with harsh court sentences.

Two other people were also sentenced Wednesday in cases linked to Ukraine or the conflict.

Acccused of trying to blow up a recruitment office, Artyom Lozovoi, 39, was convicted of multiple charges, including treason.

A military trial held behind closed doors found him guilty of treason in the form of espionage, of preparing a "terror attack" and of illegal handling of explosives.

A resident of the southern Krasnodar region, Lozovoi has been in custody since 2023 arrest.

He was caught while accessing a cache of explosives earmarked to blow up an enlistment office in the central Russian city of Voronezh, the TASS news agency reported, citing the FSB security service.

The court sentenced him to three years in prison followed by 15 years in a strict-regime penal colony, and also fined him 700,000 rubles ($7,660).

Lozovoi pleaded guilty at the trial, which opened this month, TASS reported.

Prosecutors said he had decided to join a pro-Ukrainian military unit made up of Russian citizens fighting in Ukraine, the Freedom of Russia Legion.

Russia has prosecuted numerous men for attempting to join the unit.

Russia saw a wave of arson attacks on army offices after the Kremlin announced an unpopular military mobilisation drive in September 2022.

- Two others jailed -

In a separate case Wednesday, Anastasia Zibrova, a dog handler from the Moscow region, was sentenced to five years in a penal colony for commenting on the Ukraine campaign, the Russian legal aid group and monitor OVD-Info said.

In her post, Zibrova commented on a strike on a train station in the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk in April 2022.

In one of the worst tolls from a single strike in the conflict, a Russian missile hit the station, killing 61 people and injuring 160, according to Ukrainian officials.

According to OVD-Info, more than 1,000 people have been prosecuted in Russia for criticising the Russian offensive against Ukraine since the start of the armed conflict in February 2022.

In a third case on Wednesday, a military court sentenced Ukrainian Andriy Martsenyuk to 4.5 years in prison for preparing to set fire to a local military police station, Interfax reported, citing the local branch of the FSB.