You're reading: Moscow Times: Russian naval ‘spy’ released by Ukraine

A court in Sevastopol, Ukraine has acquitted a Russian defense contractor on espionage charges after he spent two-and-a-half years in prison for buying a piece of outdated Soviet equipment from Ukrainian partners.

The court ruling was announced late Thursday, according to the defense team.

Artur Stepanyants, 53, whose saga was reported in The Moscow Times in March of last year, was arrested by Ukrainian law enforcement officers in 2010 while purchasing Soviet-made naval equipment he had been planning to use for spare parts for the ships of the Russian naval fleet in Sevastopol.

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