Guilty of treason was judged by a court of Russia A photographer, Grigori Skartsov, condemning him to 16 years in prison after he had stated that he had transferred detailed information about her former secret shelters Soviet Union to a US journalist.
Skobarvsov, who was arrested in Russia in 2023, denied that he had committed an offense. In an interview with December 2024 to the Pervy Otdel team, a group of exiled Russian lawyers, he said he had transferred information that was either publicly available on the internet or available by the Russian author of a book on the Soviet Union’s underground facilities for use in the event.
He did not name the American journalist, whom the Russian authorities have in turn described as a “foreign agent”, a characterization that refers to the Soviet Union.
A court of Perm said in a statement that Skobarcov would serve his sentence in a highest security camp and that his betrayal was fully proved in a trial that, he said, was held in camera.
He posted a photo of him in a glass cage inside the courtroom, with the defendant dressed in black showing calm as he listened to the reading of the verdict.
Russia has radically expanded the definition of what constitutes a state secret since it has sent tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine in 2022 and has since imprisoned academics, scientists and journalists who believe they have shared illegal secrets.
An online support team of Skavavarcov said in the Telegram application after the verdict that “no miracle happened” and that the photographer’s only hope to get out of prison was to exchanged as part of an exchange of prisoners between Russia and the West.