A Japanese citizen detained in Belarus for allegedly spying on military areas has been sentenced to 7 years in prison for espionage. The Belarusian Prosecutor General’s Office announced that Nakanshi Masatoshi, a Japanese national detained last September for surveilling border areas and military facilities, was sentenced to 7 years in prison. It is not yet known what defense the captured Japanese citizen presented. Dmitry Brulev, a representative of the Prosecutor General’s Office, stated the following regarding the process: “The Prosecutor General’s Office managed the state prosecution of a Japanese citizen who engaged in espionage in the Republic of Belarus from 2018 to 2024 at the Minsk City Court. Based on the evidence presented by the state prosecutor, the court found the foreign national guilty of actions aimed at knowingly harming Belarus’s national security, including collaborating with foreign state security services and intelligence agencies, and sentenced him to 7 years in prison under Article 358.3 of the Criminal Code.”