US had condemned the arrest of Robert Shonov, who had worked for more than 25 years in the now-closed mission in Vladivostok.
A former United States consulate employee in Russia has been sentenced to four years and 10 months in prison for “secret collaboration with a foreign state,” according to state media reports.
Robert Shonov, a Russian citizen and former employee at the Vladivostok US mission, was sentenced on Friday at the Primorsky District Court in the Far Eastern city.
He was also fined 1 million roubles ($10,200) and will face additional restrictions for 16 months after his prison term ends.
Shonov was arrested in May 2023, with the Federal Security Service (FSB) accusing him of gathering information about Russia’s war in Ukraine following the full-scale invasion in February 2022.
The FSB claimed that Shonov had provided information to US embassy staff in Moscow regarding how Russia’s conscription for the Ukrainian war was impacting political discontent within Russia before the 2024 presidential election.
Last year, the US Department of State criticized his arrest, stating that the allegations against Shonov were “wholly without merit.”
He was charged under a new law criminalizing “cooperation on a confidential basis with a foreign state, international, or foreign organization to support activities clearly against Russia’s security,” which carries a maximum prison sentence of eight years.
The State Department confirmed that Shonov had worked at its consulate in Vladivostok for over 25 years, which closed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and never reopened.
He later worked for a company contracted by the US to support its embassy in Moscow after a Russian government directive in April 2021 required the dismissal of all local employees in American diplomatic outposts in the country.
At the time of his arrest, his primary role as a private contractor was “to compile media summaries of press items from publicly available Russian media sources,” according to State Department spokesman Matthew Miller in May 2023.
The State Department criticized Russia for using repressive laws against its citizens, citing Shonov’s prosecution under the “confidential cooperation” law as an example of the country’s attempts to intimidate and harass US personnel.
In September 2023, Russia expelled two US diplomats accused of acting as liaison agents for Shonov.
