Russia’s domestic security service said on Monday that a former employee of the US Consulate in Vladivostok had been charged with illegally collecting information about the war in Ukraine and passing it to American officials.

The FSB announced the charges against Robert Shonov, a Russian national who was detained in May. The charges carry a punishment of three to eight years imprisonment.

There was no immediate comment from the US consulate in Vladivostok or from the state department. When Shonov was detained, state department spokesman Matthew Miller said the US strongly condemned his arrest.

Miller said that Shonov had worked for the US consulate in Vladivostok for 25 years and began working for a private contractor for the US embassy in Moscow in April 2021, after the Russian government ordered the firings of all Russian staff at US diplomatic missions in the country.

Miller said Shonov’s job had been to write summaries of news media reports “from publicly available Russian media sources”, and that his employment was “in strict compliance with Russia’s laws and regulations”.

In its statement on Monday, the FSB said that it was seeking to question two employees of the US embassy in Moscow.

New York Times News Service