Ukrainian journalist Pavlo Sharoyko convicted of spying in Belarus has been transferred from the detention center of the Belarusian State Security Committee (KGB) to the correctional institution No. 2 in Bobruisk, the Belarusian news service tut.by said citing Ukrainian Ambassador to Belarus Ihor Kyzym.
Sharoyko was transferred to the penitentiary before the New Year, and his wife has already visited him there. The Ukrainian consul plans to visit Sharoyko on January 23.
The KGB reported on November 20, 2017, that it had caught Sharoiko in flagrante delicto in Minsk.
It said his intelligence-gathering activities in Belarus were coordinated by Ihor Skvortsov, an officer of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate, who was undercover as a counselor at the Ukrainian embassy in Minsk. Belarus declared Skvortsov persona non grata for activities inconsistent with his diplomatic status.
Ukraine expelled a Belarusian diplomat based on the principle of reciprocity.
The Supreme Court of Belarus ruled on February 18, 2018, to sentence Sharoyko to eight years in prison for spying.
The Belarusian KGB had said earlier that Sharoyko’s exchange for Belarusian citizen Yury Politika detained in Ukraine was impossible but that the Ukrainian might be pardoned.
