ALBAWABA - According to a state news agency report, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) charged a former employee of the U.S. Consulate General in Vladivostok with espionage.
A former US embassy employee was detained in Russia's eastern city of Vladivostok on Monday for allegedly leaking information to American diplomats, according to Russian state media.
Robert Shonov, a Russian national, is accused of “co-operating on a confidential basis with a foreign state” by Moscow's FSB spy agency. However, the espionage charges were rejected by the U.S.
The FSB also stated that it had "suppressed the illegal activities of Robert Robertovich Shonov," who was arrested in May and that it intends to question US embassy personnel who had contact with the suspect. The charge carries a maximum sentence of eight years in jail and a fine of $10,400.
The U.S. embassy said in May that "the allegations against Mr. Shonov are wholly without merit," adding that his "only role at the time of his arrest was to compile media summaries of press items from publicly available Russian media sources".
Russia increased prison sentences for "confidential cooperation" last year. The invocation of the statute has been described as a "blatant use of increasingly repressive laws against its own citizens" by the United States.
Evan Gershkovich, a detained Wall Street Journal writer facing Russian espionage allegations, is appealing a decision to hold him in pretrial custody until November.
Gershkovich, the first US journalist detained in Russia on espionage charges since the Cold War, had his detention extended in a closed-door court session last Thursday.
