Russia sentences former US Consulate worker to nearly 5 years in prison
A court in Russia’s far-eastern city of Vladivostok has convicted a former U.S. Consulate worker charged with cooperating with a foreign state and sentenced him to four years and 10 months in prison
MOSCOW (AP) — A court in Russia's far-eastern city of Vladivostok on Friday convicted a former U.S. Consulate worker charged with cooperating with a foreign state and sentenced him to four years and 10 months in prison.
Robert Shonov, a Russian citizen and former employee of the U.S. Consulate in Vladivostok, was arrested in May 2023. Russia's top domestic security agency, the FSB, accused him of “gathering information about the special military operation" in Ukraine, a partial call-up in Russian regions and its influence on "protest activities of the population in the runup to the 2024 presidential election.”
The U.S. Embassy in Moscow condemned the sentence and rejected the charges against him as “completely false and unfounded.”
"The criminal prosecution of Mr. Shonov only underscores the campaign of intimidation the Russian government is increasingly taking against its own citizens,” the embassy said in a statement.
