Former KGB General Convicted in Absentia of Treason
Kalugin, who emigrated to the United States in 1995, is the first KGB operative to be put on trial in absentia in Russia for treason since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The Moscow city court ruled that the 67-year-old was guilty of treason and had harmed the "national security of Russia".
The tribunal also stripped him of his rank and all the honors he received during his 32-year career with the Soviet-era KGB.
Prosecutors had requested a 20-year jail term for Kalugin, AFP reported.
Russia suspects Kalugin handed over classified documents to Washington when he provided testimony in the U.S. trial of former U.S. Army Colonel and convicted Russian spy, George Trofimoff.
Trofimoff received a life prison sentence last September.
But the court struck out this charge because it said that it had not seen an original account of the trial testimony and was unable to convict Kalugin purely on the basis of press reports.
It ruled him guilty of revealing secret information about Soviet intelligence operations to discredit the CIA and FBI in a book he co-wrote in 1994 with a U.S. journalist.
The former KGB General's Defense Attorney, Yevgeny Baru, said he intended to appeal the conviction.
The Russian secret service failed last March to persuade Kalugin to return to Moscow to face the charges. The defiant former spy, who still lives in the United States, has vowed never to return home.
He caused a sensation in the early 1990s by publicly opposing the powerful KGB while still in its service and taking part in the Russian Democratic Movement, and more recently has been critical of President Vladimir Putin.
After his flight to the United States, Kalugin wrote several books denouncing the Soviet secret service and said today's Russia under Putin, a former KGB Colonel was corrupt and criminalized.