The arrest of Robert Shonov in May drew condemnation from the State Department.
Shonov is a Russian citizen who was a long-time employee of the U.S. consulate in the city of Vladivostok, on Russia’s Pacific coast, before his arrest.
The FSB said Shonov was being paid to collect information about what the Kremlin calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine, the mobilization effort across Russia and “problematic issues and their impact on the protest activity of the population ahead of the 2024 presidential election in Russia.” The security service alleged Shonov carried out these tasks from last September and until his arrest.
The State Department said Shonov was employed by the embassy in Vladivostok for more than 25 years, and that his “only role at the time of his arrest was to compile media summaries of press items from publicly available Russian media sources.”that Shonov was charged with “conspiracy,” but did not say what prompted the charges. It said Shonov could face up to 8 years in prison.
On Monday, Tass shared a video purportedly showing Shonov’s arrest and interrogation in which he lays out how he carried out the tasks for the U.S. NBC News could not verify the authenticity of the video, where and when it was shot, or whether Shonov was giving his testimony under duress.Journalist Evan Gershkovich was
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