The main defendant, Ukrainian national Nikolai Shvets, was sentenced in absentia to 25 years in prison. Shvets, who gave an interview to Belarusian state television last April in which he detailed how he planned the attack, was released in a prisoner exchange with Ukraine in June, according to Belarusian rights group Viasna.

The Minsk City Court sentenced 12 people to prison over sabotage of the Machulishchy military airfield in Belarus last year, the Viasna human rights group said on Oct. 4. Some of the sentences were handed down in absentia.

Activists said in February 2023 that they'd blown up a surveillance plane in a drone attack; Russia and Belarus dismissed assertion as fake