Belarusian court reportedly jails Ukrainian reporter for eight years:
By RFE/RL's Belarus Service
Media reports say a Belarusian court has sentenced a Ukrainian reporter to more than eight years in prison after convicting him of espionage.
The Ukrainian ambassador to Belarus, Ihor Kizim, was quoted by the Belarusian news site Tut.by and Reuters as saying that the trial of Pavlo Sharoyko took place behind closed doors, but he didn’t specify when the Supreme Court issued his sentence.
Kizim also said he had visited Sharoyko in a KGB detention center, and that his detention conditions were acceptable.
Sharoyko was detained in October 2017 by the Belarus's KGB, accused of being part of a spy ring working for Ukraine's Defense Ministry.
Kizim also said Sharoyko had pleaded guilty to the charges, but said that the embassy did not believe the reports.
Ukraine and Belarus expelled each other's diplomats after Sharoyko's arrest.
SBU warns of potential cyberattack linked to Champions League final:
By RFE/RL
Ukraine's main security agency has warned of a potential Russian cyberattack ahead of this weekend's final match of the Champions League soccer tournament.
In a May 23 statement, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) gave few details, but it came just hours after global networking company Cisco Systems warned that hackers had infected at least 500,000 routers and storage devices in dozens of countries.
There was no immediate comment from Russian officials to the SBU statement.
Russia has previously denied allegations by Ukraine and the United States about its hacking efforts, which have allegedly included efforts to shut down parts of Ukraine's electrical grid.
"Security Service experts believe the infection of hardware in Ukraine is preparation for another act of cyber-aggression by the Russian Federation aimed at destabilizing the situation during the Champions League final," the SBU said in its statement.
The match will be played in Kyiv on May 26.
Earlier on May 23, the cyberintelligence unit for Cisco Systems, called Talos, said that its researchers had high confidence that the Russian government was behind the malware campaign, which it called VPNFilter.
VPNFilter could be used for espionage, to interfere with Internet communications, or launch destructive attacks on Ukraine, Talos said. (w/Reuters)