A man has been jailed for 14 years in a maximum-security prison for taking pictures of gravestones.
Nikolai Shcherbakov, 48, was found guilty of high treason by a Russian court last month, the country’s independent news outlet Mediazona reported.
According to Russian law enforcement, Shcherbakov, from Yaroslavl – around 280km northeast of Moscow – had been ‘systematically’ visiting a cemetery and snapping pictures of the graves of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine for nearly two years.
He would then send the images on to Ukrainian intelligence services, officials claimed.
The court where he was convicted said on its website: ‘The court established that since October 2024, defendant Nikolai Shcherbakov had systematically visited a memorial cemetery, where he secretly photographed and recorded video of the burial sites of military personnel.
‘The Yaroslavl resident sent the collected information via a messenger service to representatives of the Ukrainian intelligence services.’
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Footage released by a Russian regional court suggests an investigation into Shcherbakov’s offences began late last year before the case was officially sent to trial in July of this year.
It is unclear where Shcherbakov will be jailed.
It comes after a woman was detained on June 17, also for taking pictures of Russian military graves, in Sverdlovsk Oblast, reportedly prompting the Federal Security Service (FSB) to increase surveillance of cemeteries in the region, reports news outlet Caliber.
A week later, on June 24, a woman was jailed for the same reason in Yekaterinburg.
In late June, the FSB opened a high treason case against three people who were arrested in Tomsk Oblast, Western Siberia, for allegedly filming military graves.
They were also accused of passing on information, including the identities of people who had died on the frontline, to Ukraine.
The war in Ukraine is showing no signs of letting up, with European leaders warning Russian President Vladimir Putin could launch attacks further afield.
On September 1, Germany blamed Russia for an incident at Leipzig-Halle Airport the month before.
Police called in a bomb squad after a drone rigged with explosives and an ‘unknown substance’ was found next to a Ukrainian cargo plane at the hub in Saxony.
But the Kremlin hit back after the attack was attributed to Russia, warning that the declaration had escalated tensions between the two countries.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said earlier this month: ‘Leipzig, the airport. They found some drone there. They said it was a Russian drone, and no one bothered to investigate.
‘This is, in essence, the beginning of a real war.’