Russia Jails Estonian Policeman for 15 Years for Spying

Russia on Wednesday sentenced an Estonian intelligence officer to 15 years in jail, drawing ire from the EU after Tallinn said he was kidnapped at gunpoint on its territory.

A court in the western Pskov region, which borders Estonia, sentenced Eston Kohver on charges of spying, weapon possession and illegally crossing the border, his court-appointed lawyer, Yevgeny Aksyonov, told AFP.

Prosecutors claimed Kohver -- an officer for Estonia's KAPO internal security service -- was detained on Russian territory last September as he carried out an undercover operation.

NATO member Tallinn however accuses Moscow's FSB security service of kidnapping him at gunpoint from Estonian territory as he was investigating cross-border crime.

"The abduction of Eston Kohver from the territory of the Republic of Estonia by the FSB on 5 September and his unlawful detainment in Russia thereafter constitute a blatant breach of international law," Estonian Foreign Minister Marina Kaljurand said in a statement.

"Today's judgment does not change our position. We call on Russia to immediately release Eston Kohver."

Estonia's internal security service covers several fields including counter-intelligence work and weapons smuggling.

Tensions between Russia and the ex-Soviet Baltic states have soared over Russia's seizure of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula and alleged backing of pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Many in Estonia believe the timing of Kohver's arrest was deliberate, coming just two days after U.S. President Barack Obama visited Tallinn in a show of support for Baltic security following Russia's role in the Ukraine crisis.

The Estonian foreign minister slammed Kohver's trial, saying there had been "no fair administration of justice in the proceedings".

"Our consul was not allowed to be present at the hearings and Eston Kohver was deprived of adequate legal aid," Kaljurand said.

In a post on Facebook, Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves asked people to wear yellow ribbons in a show of support for Kohver, who is expected to be sent to one of Russia's strict penal colonies.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini urged Russia to free Kohver, denouncing his "abduction" as a violation of international law.

"The EU continues to call on the Russian Federation to act according to its international obligations, release Mr Kohver immediately and guarantee his safe return to Estonia," Mogherini said in a statement.

Mogherini is expected to travel to Estonia Monday for a previously arranged visit, her spokeswoman told journalists.

Baltic states Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania emerged from nearly five decades of Soviet occupation in the early 1990s and joined NATO and the European Union in 2004 in a bid to shore up their security amid tense relations with Moscow.

Leaders in Eastern Europe have grown increasingly jittery of Russia's expansionism in Ukraine, with some hawkish voices in the West suggesting Moscow could try to intervene in the Baltics.

The spike in tensions has also seen a rise in spying claims by Moscow and its neighbors, in a series of Cold War-style tit-for-tat incidents.

Russia's federal security service said in May that it was holding a Lithuanian spy caught "red-handed" in Moscow during an exchange of secret documents.

The announcement came just days after Lithuanian prosecutors said they had detained a Russian citizen suspected of spying.

The European Union and United States have slapped tough economic sanctions on Moscow over the crisis in Ukraine, while Russia has responded by banning Western agricultural produce.

Independent Russian political analyst Masha Lipman told AFP that the lengthy sentence for Kohver was a sign of how bad relations between Moscow and Europe have become.

"The relationship with Europe has already hit its lowest level in the post-Soviet period," Lipman said.

"This move exacerbates the confrontation between Russia and the EU."