Poland jails former Russian activist, wife for spying

A Polish court sentenced a former Russian opposition activist and his wife to prison on Thursday for spying for Moscow.

Court documents said Russian citizen Igor R., identified by Russian media as Igor Rogov, was jailed for seven years. His wife, Irina, was sentenced to three years. The pair were sentenced in the southern city of Katowice after a closed-door trial held for national security reasons.

Poland said Rogov, previously an activist with the anti-Kremlin group Open Russia, gathered information for Russia's FSB security service on Russian opposition members and organisations that support them.

The court said Rogov spied between February and August 2022, passing data on an encrypted device to his wife, who was due to transfer it to Russian intelligence officers.

Prosecutors also said Rogov, together with two Ukrainians and another Russian, sent and arranged the pickup of a parcel containing explosives through a courier company in July 2024. They said Polish security services intercepted the package at a courier company warehouse in the Lodz region.

The couple had been in detention since their arrest two years ago.