A judge from the Moscow region has sentenced physicist Artyom Khoroshilov to 21 years in a high-security prison for treason, as reported by Russian media on Thursday.
Khoroshilov was apprehended in December 2023, with allegations of conducting distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on vital infrastructure for Ukraine, financing the Ukrainian military, and collecting classified information about the Russian armed forces.
The 34-year-old physicist admitted to some of the accusations but denied the claims made by state prosecutors regarding his direct role in a DDoS attack on Russian Post servers in August 2022, according to the exiled news source Mediazona.
In his closing remarks last week, Khoroshilov expressed that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was deeply personal, as many of his relatives reside there.
On Thursday, a judge at the Moscow Region Court convicted Khoroshilov of treason, targeting critical infrastructure, possession of explosives, and intentions to carry out sabotage.
Prosecutors had sought a 25-year prison term for him.
Cases involving treason and other national security-related charges in Russia are typically adjudicated in closed sessions.
Khoroshilov graduated from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) and was employed as a researcher at the Institute of General Physics, part of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
His case is part of a broader crackdown under Russia’s treason and espionage laws that has intensified since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Data from the Kirill Parubets Analytical Center indicates that Russian courts issued 224 verdicts related to treason or espionage in the first half of 2025, marking the highest figure in modern Russian history.
During that timeframe, 232 individuals faced such allegations, averaging nearly two convictions per working day.
In contrast, 167 individuals were convicted of treason or espionage charges in 2023, and 143 in the first half of 2024, with each case resulting in a guilty ruling and prison sentence.
