Russia says it sentences OSCE employee to prison for spying in east Ukraine

(Reuters) – A Russian-installed court in Ukraine’s Donetsk region sentenced an Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe official to 14 years in prison on charges of spying for unspecified foreign intelligence agencies, Russia’s prosecutor general said on Friday.

In a statement on the messaging app Telegram, the prosecutor’s office said Vadym Golda had in 2021 gathered information on Donetsk-region industrial sites that was then used to direct missile strikes on the province.

Writing on X, the Vienna-based OSCE said its leaders “unequivocally condemn” the sentencing and called for the release of Golda and two other former OSCE employees jailed by Russia for treason in 2022.

The OSCE, a 57-nation intergovernmental organisation of which Russia, Ukraine and many Western countries are part, deployed a monitoring mission to eastern Ukraine between 2014 and 2022.

Its employees were tasked with monitoring a series of fragile ceasefires between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists, and were pulled out shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.