A court in the far eastern Russian city of Vladivostok sentenced a former U.S. consulate employee to four years and ten months in prison on Friday for allegedly collaborating with a foreign state.
Robert Shonov, a former employee at the U.S. Consulate in Vladivostok, was arrested in May 2023. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) accused him of “collecting information about the special military operation” in Ukraine, regarding conscription in Russian regions and its influence on “protest activities of the public ahead of the 2024 presidential elections.”
The U.S. State Department condemned Shonov’s arrest last year, stating that the charges against him are “completely unfounded.”
Shonov was charged under a new article of Russian law that criminalizes “confidential cooperation with a foreign state, international organization, or foreign entity to support their activities directed clearly against the security of Russia.” Critics of the Kremlin and human rights defenders have said this law could be used to punish any Russian citizen with foreign ties. It provides for imprisonment of up to eight years.
The State Department stated that Shonov worked at the U.S. consulate in Vladivostok for over 25 years. The consulate was closed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and has not reopened.
The State Department also mentioned that following a Russian government order in April 2021 requiring the dismissal of all local staff at U.S. diplomatic missions in Russia, Shonov worked for a company that the U.S. had contracted to support its embassy in Moscow.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller stated in May 2023 that Shonov’s only task at the time of his arrest was “to prepare summaries of articles from publicly available Russian media sources.”
Shonov was held in the notorious Lefortovo prison in Moscow, known for its harsh conditions, while awaiting trial, but was tried in the Primorsky District Court in Vladivostok.
In addition to the prison sentence, which Shonov was ordered to serve in a general regime penal colony, the court also fined him one million rubles (just over $10,000) and ordered him to face additional restrictions for 16 months after serving his sentence.
