Five-year spying sentence takes effect for former party board member

A five-year prison sentence has taken effect for Iļja Podkolzins, a former board member of the political party Together for Latvia, over the collection of intelligence in Latvia and its transfer to Russian security services through the pro-Kremlin criminal organisation Baltic Antifascists, LSM reported, citing the LETA news agency.

Podkolzins reached a plea agreement with prosecutors and was sentenced to five years in prison, followed by one year of probation supervision.

According to information from the State Security Service, Podkolzins collected and passed on intelligence about transport and logistics sites belonging to Latvia’s critical infrastructure. This included hangars at Riga Airport, their use, and the airport’s access-control and security procedures.

He also collected and transferred information about the construction of border and border-area infrastructure, defence and military mobility measures near Latvia’s border with Russia, the training of foreign soldiers in Latvia and specific Latvian nationals.

Information from the Firmas.lv business database shows that Podkolzins is no longer a board member of Together for Latvia.

TV3’s investigative programme Nothing Personal reported that leaked correspondence from Russia showed Podkolzins had contacts with Sergei Vasiliev, who gives interviews in Russian media as the leader of Baltic Antifascists. The correspondence said Podkolzins travelled to Moscow several times in 2023 and 2024, where he met Vasiliev.

Materials obtained by the programme indicated that Podkolzins, using the alias Vadim Sedov, sent information about facilities at Riga Airport, including hangars and the cargo handled there.

Publicly available information shows that Podkolzins was previously a Daugavpils city council member, headed the Latvian Investment and Development Agency’s office in Russia, worked as an economic attaché at Latvia’s embassy and was active in the aviation sector.

In January, the State Security Service detained four people suspected of espionage. The service said information obtained during the investigation indicated that the Latvian residents had systematically and deliberately collected various types of intelligence and passed it to Baltic Antifascists for onward transmission to Russia’s Federal Security Service.