A Moscow court has extended for three months the pretrial detention of a former employee of a U.S. consulate in Russia who is being held on charges of illegally collaborating with foreigners in an action condemned by the United States.
Russian state-run TASS news agency late on August 29 said Moscow’s Lefortovo District Court had extended the pretrial detention until November 23 for Robert Shonov, a Russian national who worked at the now-closed U.S. Consulate in Vladivostok for more than 25 years.
Following Shonov’s arrest, the U.S. State Department warned Russia to follow international treaties in the case and said the move highlights the "increasingly repressive" actions the Kremlin is taking against its own citizens.
Shonov faces a potential sentence of up to eight years in prison.
TASS quoted a court spokeswoman as saying Shonov had pleaded guilty to gathering information about the "special military operation" -- what Russia calls its invasion of Ukraine -- for U.S. diplomats.
A video of him allegedly confessing appeared on August 28 in local media, along with pictures of two summonses from Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) for two diplomats working at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow in connection with the case.
There is no way to immediately determine if the alleged confession was made under duress.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement issued late on August 28 that the allegations of wrongdoing against Shonov are "wholly without merit," as he was employed in April 2021 by a company contracted to provide services to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow "in strict compliance with Russia’s laws and regulations."
"Russia’s targeting of Mr. Shonov under the 'confidential cooperation' statute only highlights the increasingly repressive actions the Russian government is taking against its own citizens," Miller said.
"We strongly protest the Russian security services’ attempts -- furthered by Russia’s state-controlled media -- to intimidate and harass our employees. Russia is obligated under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations to treat diplomats with due respect and to take all appropriate steps to prevent any attack on their person, freedom, or dignity, and we expect them to fulfill that obligation," Miller added.
Relations between Moscow and Washington are at their lowest point since the end of the Cold War over the Kremlin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which has prompted waves of harsh sanctions against Russia and most of its leadership.
Shonov is in the same prison where Evan Gershkovich, an American reporter for The Wall Street Journal, is being held. Gershkovich has been in custody since his arrest on March 29 by Russia’s security service on espionage charges that he, his newspaper, and the U.S. government have denied.
The United States has declared Gershkovich to be wrongfully detained and demanded his immediate release.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin has widened the scope of a crackdown on criticism of Russian government policies.