A court in the far-eastern Russian city of Vladivostok on Friday convicted a former U.S. consulate worker accused of cooperating with a foreign state and sentenced him to four years and 10 months in prison.
Robert Shonov, a Russian citizen and former worker at the US consulate in Vladivostok, was arrested in May 2023. Russia’s main internal security agency, the FSB, accused him of “gathering information about the special military operation” in Ukraine, the partial mobilization of troops in Russian regions and its influence on “the protest activities of the population in the run-up to the 2024 presidential elections.”
The U.S. State Department last year condemned the arrest and said the allegations against Shonov “have no basis.”
Shonov was charged under a new article of Russian law that criminalizes “confidential cooperation with a foreign state, international organization or foreign organization to assist its activities clearly directed against the security of Russia.” Kremlin critics and human rights advocates have said the description is so vague that it could be used to punish any Russian with foreign connections. It carries a prison sentence of up to eight years.
The State Department has said Shonov worked at the US consulate in Vladivostok for more than 25 years. The consulate closed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and never reopened.
The State Department has said that after a Russian government order in April 2021 that required the firing of all local employees in U.S. diplomatic posts in Russia, Shonov worked at a company contracted by the United States to support its embassy. in Moscow.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in May 2023 that Shonov’s only role at the time of his arrest was to “produce summaries of press articles from publicly available Russian media.”
Shonov was detained in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison, known for its harsh conditions, for the duration of the investigation, but was tried at Vladivostok’s Primorsky District Court.
In addition to a prison sentence, which Shonov must serve in a general penal colony, the court ruled that the former consular worker must pay a fine of 1 million rubles (just over $10,000) and face additional restrictions for 16 months afterward. to serve his sentence.
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