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A lawyer and businesswoman with links to Vladimir Putin's inner circle has been charged by Russia with spying for the West.

Karina Tsurkan, 43, is accused of passing “top secret” Russian government information to NATO intelligence agencies, a source said.

Today, the Romanian, who works in Russia, looked distraught and shattered as she appeared in the glass cage of a Moscow court.

She faces up to 20 years behind bars if convicted.

Tsurkan, also known as Carina Turcan, had been held in top security Lefortovo jail following her detention by the FSB security service.

(Image: TASS)

(Image: Peretok.ru / east2west news)

Her Russian lawyer Dmitry Tsuprik said: “My client has been charged.”

Tsurkan insists she is innocent and has been charged because she refused to condone corruption in her role as a Russian energy company executive whose job involved supplying electricity to annexed Crimea and areas of eastern Ukraine, he indicated.

She said: “A human being can be jailed but not ruined", and also claimed that Russian public opinion was being “poisoned against me".

Tsurkan is suspected of supplying the West via Romanian spies with secrets based on her role as an executive at a company called Inter RAO, which exports electricity to Europe as well as Crimea.

(Image: TASS) (Image: Reuters)

Russia fears its secrets have gone to the CIA and other Western secret services.

The chairman of the executive board of Inter RAO is 40-year-old Boris Kovalchuk, the son of one of the Russian President’s oldest friends, Yury Kovalchuk, the 66-year-old billionaire chairman of Rossiya Bank.

Yury is linked to National Media Group, now chaired by Alina Kabaeva, 35, long suspected of being Putin’s lover or wife.

The chairman of Inter RAO - vital for electricity supplies to eastern Europe - is Igor Sechin, an ex-KGB officer who has been called the most powerful man in Russia after Putin.

Sechin is also the boss of energy giant Rosneft.

(Image: Informing.ru / east2west news)

Boris Kovalchuk is on the guardian council of the Innopraktika foundation where Putin’s daughter Katerina Tikhonova is the general director.

Tsurkan is believed to have worked in an executive capacity on electricity exports to Europe, and she sits on Inter ROA's board.

The office of Putin’s deputy energy minister Vyacheslav Kravchenko has been searched as part of the espionage case, according to the RBC news outlet.

He is expected to become a “witness” in the case.

“A source close to Russia secret service said Tsurkan is suspected of working for Romanian secret services as well as the secret services of other NATO countries,” reported Argumentia.life.

(Image: east2west news)

Her ex-husband Alexander Tsurkan described her arrest as a “great misconception”.

The couple divorced in 2002.

She is “a wonderful person and an exceptional lawyer”, he said.

She is believed to live with another top energy executive called Viktor Drigenich with whom she shares a luxury 1600-square-ft apartment in Moscow.

Both were awarded medals for their involvement in building facilities for the Russian Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014.

The FSB is investigating her under espionage laws used against foreigners.

(Image: Nevtegaz.ru / east2west news)

The FSB is “very suspicious” that she obtained a Russian passport illegally, according to Rosbalt news agency.

Lawyer Ilya Prokofiev said: “The rate of guilty verdicts under this article is close to 100 percent.”

A source at Inter RAO said Tsurkan was unavailable because she was “on vacation”.

The Moscow sanctioned her detention for two months pending investigations by the FSB and classified the espionage case as “secret”.

The Romanian embassy in Moscow has demanded information on her case.