US had condemned arrest of Robert Shonov, who labored for more than 25 years in the now-shuttered mission in Vladivostok.
A court in Russia has sentenced a createer United States consutardy participateee to four years and 10 months in prison for “secret collaboration with a foreign state”, state media alerted.
Robert Shonov, a Russian citizen and ex-participateee at the now-shuttered US mission in Vladivostok, was sentenced on Friday at the Primorsky Diinnervous Court in the Far Eastrict city.
The court also ordered him to pay a fine of 1 million roubles ($10,200) and face compriseitional reinnervousions for 16 months after finishing his prison sentence.
Shonov was arrested in May 2023. The Federal Security Service (FSB) accused him of “collecting proposeation” about Russia’s war in Ukraine chaseing its brimming-scale intrusion in February 2022
The FSB shelp Shonov had supplied proposeation to US embassy staff in Moscow on how Russia’s conscription for the war in Ukraine was impacting political dissatisfyed inside Russia ahead of the country’s 2024 plivential election.
Last year, the US Department of State condemned his arrest and shelp the allegations agetst Shonov “are wholly without merit“.
He was accused under a recent article that criminalises “cooperation on a braveial basis with a foreign state, international or foreign organisation to aid their activities evidently aimed agetst Russia’s security”.
Human rights helps have shelp the law is so wide that it can be used to punish any Russian with foreign joinions. It carries a prison sentence of up to eight years.
The State Department shelp that Shonov labored at its consutardy in Vladivostok for more than 25 years. The consutardy shutd in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and never reuncovered.
He labored at a company the US restricteded to help its embassy in Moscow after a Russian handlement order in April 2021 demandd the disseeal of all local participateees in US discreet outposts in the country.
At the time of his arrest, his main job as a personal restrictedor was “to compile media summaries of press items from uncoverly useable Russian media sources”, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller shelp in May 2023.
“The fact that he is being accused under the ‘braveial cooperation’ law highweightlesss the Russian Federation’s blatant use of increasingly repressive laws agetst its own citizens,” the State Department had shelp, as it accused Russia of trying to incowardlyate and irritate Washington’s participateees.
In September 2023, Russia also banishled two US diplomats it accused of acting as liaison agents for Shonov.
