.A former USA paratrooper as well as rock entertainer confined in Russia much more than a year earlier on drug costs was punished to 13 years in prison on Thursday, the Moscow court system's media service stated.Michael Travis Leake, who faced the Moscow-based stone band Lovi Noch, was actually apprehended in June 2023 after district attorneys indicted him of "managing a medicine working company involving youngsters.".Moscow's Khamovnitchesky Courtroom located him guilty of criminal activities attached to the purchase of unlawful drugs, the courtroom's press service claimed in a post on Telegram. He was actually punished to thirteen years in a maximum-security jail nest.Leake was incarcerated alongside Veronika Grabanchuk, another accused convicted of drug costs. Her relation to Leake was actually certainly not promptly crystal clear.Arrests of U.S. people in Russia have raised lately, in what Washington sees as a Kremlin tactic to secure the launch of Russians founded guilty abroad.Among other American citizens kept in Russian prisons are actually previous marines Robert Gilman and also Paul Whelan, along with journalists Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva.