Russia sentences former US consulate employee to nearly 5 years in prison

A court in Russia's far-eastern city of Vladivostok convicted a former US 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 US 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 US State Department last year condemned the arrest and said the allegations against Shonov “are wholly without merit.”

Shonov was charged under a new article of Russian law that criminalises “cooperation on a confidential basis with a foreign state, international or foreign organization to assist their activities aimed against Russia’s security.”

The State Department has said Shonov worked at the US Consulate in Vladivostok for more than 25 years. The consulate closed in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and never reopened.

It also added that after a Russian government order in April 2021 required the dismissal of all local employees in US diplomatic outposts in Russia, Shonov worked at a company the US contracted with to support its embassy in Moscow.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in May 2023 that Shonov’s only role at the time of his arrest was “to compile media summaries of press items from publicly available Russian media sources.”

Shonov was held in the Lefortovo Prison in Moscow, but stood trial in Vladivostok's Primorsky District Court.

In addition to a prison term, which Shonov was ordered to serve in, the court ruled that he must pay a fine of $10,000 and face additional restrictions for 16 months after finishing his prison sentence.