A court in Tallinn has convicted a man with dual Russian-Estonian citizenship for raising funds and buying drones for the Russian armed forces that invaded Ukraine.
The Harju District Court on July 21 sentenced 43-year-old Vladimir Shilov to four months in prison, another eight months of suspension from work and a four-year probationary period after finding him guilty of supporting the aggression of a foreign country.
The court also found Shilov’s two co-defendants, Ilya and Ruslan Golembovsky, guilty of financing the purchase of drones and gave each of them a five-month prison sentence and a 20-month probationary period, RFE/RL reports.
Estonian authorities arrested Shilov on May 28 when he was crossing the Estonian-Russian border with three drones he had bought in Estonia for the Russian armed forces in Ukraine.
After Russia launched its ongoing unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Shilov openly supported Russian President Vladimir Putin and launched an online fundraising campaign to buy drones for Russian troops, calling it “an act of support of our troops”.
Ukraine and many European Union countries have criminalized supporting Russian aggression against Ukraine since the start of the war on February 24.