A former assistant to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regional aide has been sentenced to 12.5 years in prison after being found guilty of state treason, the RBC news website reported Wednesday.
Alexander Vorobyov, who had spent one year as an assistant to Putin’s then-envoy in the Urals Federal District, was arrested in 2019.
Few details have been disclosed in the two years since as Russian treason cases are tried behind closed doors. Vorobyov’s since-deleted biography on the federal district’s website stated that he had received a letter of appreciation from Putin sometime in 2018.
The Urals-based ura.ru news website reported that Vorobyov was found guilty of sharing secret information with Polish security services.
“The Moscow City Court handed down the verdict [against Vorobyov] and imposed a sentence of 12 years and 6 months in a high-security colony with two years probation,” RBC quoted the court as saying.
Vorobyov has also been stripped of his state official rank, the outlet reported.
According to Interfax, the state prosecution had requested 13 years in maximum-security penal colony for Vorobyov. State treason charges carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in jail in Russia.
Interfax said Vorobyov was appointed as the former Putin envoy’s chief of staff in July 2018 and detained a year later in July 2019.
That had been his first appointment in the Urals after an 18-year public office career concentrated in the northwest Russian regions of Kaliningrad and Karelia, it added.
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