Russia punishes US consulate employee on security charges

A former Russian employee of the US consulate in Vladivostok in Russia’s far east has been sentenced to four years and ten months in prison for “collusion with a foreign state”, according to Russian media.

Robert Shonov served at the US consulate for more than 25 years until 2021, when Moscow restricted local staff from working in foreign missions.

He later worked as a private contractor and collected press accounts from publicly available Russian media, according to the U.S. State Department.

He was arrested this year on charges of passing secret information about Russia’s war in Ukraine to the United States in exchange for money.

According to the decision published on the website of the Valdivostok Primorye court, 400,000 rubles (€4,000) and electronic equipment linked to the crime were seized.

Russia expelled two US diplomats in September 2023, accusing them of working as Shonov’s liaison agents.

According to Washington, Shonov was assigned to conduct normal monitoring of Russian media openly accessible to the US consulate.

In recent years, numerous US citizens have been arrested in Russia and sentenced to long prison sentences. Others are being detained pending trial.

In a historic exchange in August, the United States and Russia exchanged prisoners, including The Wall Street Journal writer Evan Gershkovich, while scores of U.S. citizens and dual citizens remained in Russian custody.