A Russian court has sentenced former investigative journalist Ivan Safronov to 22 years in prison on charges of treason, a vicious verdict of one of the most high-profile prosecutions of a journalist in Russia in years.
The harsh sentence is only the latest episode in Russia’s restriction on media and free expression that has shuttered nearly all independent media outlets in the country and involves harsh regulations on reporting the ongoing conflict in neighbouring Ukraine.
Safronov was arrested in July 2020 and has been held in pretrial detention since then. Investigators with the FSB, Russia’s domestic intelligence service, accused him of passing on state secrets to German and Czech agents between 2015 and 2017, during his tenure as a reporter covering military and space for business daily Kommersant. The trial was held behind closed doors and the evidence was not made public.
Safronov’s supporters say the FSB drummed up the charges in retaliation for his journalistic work that focused on secretive Russian arms trade dealings and disclosed the mishaps of the country’s Defense Ministry.
In a clip from the courtroom, published by the TV Rain channel, Safronov’s supporters clapped and chanted “Freedom!” after the verdict was handed down. “I love you,” Safronov replied before he was led out of the courtroom cage.
A leaked indictment, published by the Russian investigative outlet Proekt, suggests that the materials Safronov allegedly obtained from “people with access to state secrets” and passed on to Western intelligence were in the public domain.
The report also notes that during the pretrial investigation, Safronov unsuccessfully requested that prosecutors allow him to access a computer so he could pull up the purportedly classified information from online sources.
“It is clear to us that the reason for Ivan Safronov’s persecution is not ‘treason,’ that is not supported by anything, but it is his journalistic work and articles he published without taking into account the opinion of the Ministry of Defense and the Russian authorities,” Russian investigative outlet Kholod, said in a letter calling on Russian authorities to release the journalist.
Safronov’s career in Kommersant spanned a decade. He first joined the paper as an intern but quickly rose through the ranks and became one of the most high-profile Russian correspondents covering the defence and space industries. His father, also named Ivan, worked for the same paper covering military affairs and died under mysterious circumstances after falling from a window of his Moscow apartment building.
