Russia has sentenced Karina Turcan to 15 years in prison for espionage in favor of the Republic of Moldova. Initially, he had accused her of spying for Romania.

In addition to the arrest, Karina Turcan will have to pay 656 million Russian rubles. According to the indictment, Turcan sent information to the special service of the Republic of Moldova on the supply of electricity from Russia to Ukraine. According to the investigation, on August 16, 2004, Ţurcan was implicated by the Intelligence and Security Service of the Republic of Moldova for confidential collaboration under the pseudonym Karl.

At the end of April 2015, in Moscow, he received an electronic version of the “draft document of the Ministry of Energy on certain aspects of the actions of Russian energy companies in international cooperation” and, no later than September 29, 2015, sent this document to special service.

Turcan claims that he has never met with representatives of foreign intelligence services, he has not seen the document and the transfer receipt with which he is accused. She links this persecution to an attempt to expel her. She has been in custody for more than two years.

Karina Ţurcan, originally from the Republic of Moldova and with Romanian citizenship, was arrested on June 15, 2018 in Russia, on suspicion of transmitting secret information to Romania, related to the supply of energy to Crimea and pro-Russian separatist territories in the east of Ukraine.

Earlier this year, Turcan approached Russian President Vladimir Putin with a request for an independent investigation into his case, drawing his attention to the fact that his entire case is based on fabricated data. He then claimed that the accusation was based on various documents. The first was a photocopy of an investigation carried out by an SIS agent, which contained personal data that matched that of Turcan. “It is a difficult copy to read, some pages are missing: it is my basic data, which can be collected about any of us: address, education,” he said, noting that it was a form that could also be downloaded from the Internet.

A second document consisted of alleged interceptions by the Russian secret services of information allegedly transmitted by the SIS to the NATO office, Turcan said on the occasion, explaining that again these were photocopies that were difficult to read in English. According to the indictment, it was the exact translation of confidential letters from Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak and his deputy, Anatoly Janovsky.

In his appeal to President Putin, Turcan insisted that he did not have access to those letters because he generally did not have access to information considered a state secret, adding that the texts referred to Russian gas supplies to Moldova. Russian gas in Crimea and issues related to the supply of energy resources on the territory of the Russian Federation.