A group of six Bulgarian nationals have been imprisoned for a total of 50 years for spying for Russia in the UK and across Europe.
The sentencing judge in London, the Old Bailey court, said the six Bulgarian spies carried surveillance for the Kremlin "on an industrial scale", targeting journalists, dissidents and Ukrainian troops in London, Austria, Spain, Germany and Montenegro.
The lengthy trial revealed that the group also spied on two journalists who had exposed nerve agent attacks on Russian dissidents Alexei Navalny and Sergei Skripal.
The judge ruled that the group’s work posed a serious security threat to the UK. The court sentenced the reingleader Orlin Roussev, 47, to 10 years and eight months in prison. His deputy, Biser Dzhambazov, 44, was sentenced to 10 years and two months.
Other convicts - Katrin Ivanova, 33, was sentenced to nine years and eight months in jail, while Ivanchev, 39, Ivan Stoyanov, 33, and Vanya Gaberova, 30 - were jailed to between six and eight years.
The operation to expose the spy group was conducted in the UK, Austria, Spain, Germany and Montenegro in "one of the largest" foreign intelligence operations in the UK, prosecutors told the court.
According to Judge Hilliard, the defendants were "motivated by money," amounting to up to $1.1 million.
