Treason and espionage cases on the rise in Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — When Maxim Kolker’s phone rang at 6 a.m. and the voice on the other end told him his father had been arrested, he thought it was a scam to extort money. The day before, he had taken his father, prominent Russian physicist Dmitry Kolker, to a hospital in his hometown of Novosibirsk, when his advanced pancreatic cancer suddenly worsened.

The phone kept ringing, and Kolker kept hanging up until his father finally called to confirm the terrible news. The family later learned that Kolker Sr. had been charged with treason, a crime investigated and tried in complete secrecy in Russia and punishable by long prison terms.

Cases of betrayal were rare in Russia In the past 30 years, with a few per year. But since 2022 invasion of ukraineTheir numbers have increased dramatically, along with the espionage prosecutions, Trapping both citizens and foreignersRegardless of their political orientation.

This has drawn comparisons with the show trials of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in the 1930s.

The latest victims range from From Kremlin critics and independent journalists to seasoned scholars Working with countries that Moscow considers friendly.

The cases stand out from a crackdown on dissent that has reached unprecedented levels under President Vladimir Putin. The cases are investigated almost exclusively by the powerful Federal Security Service, with the specific allegations and evidence never made public.

Defendants are often held in complete isolation in The notorious Lefortovo prison in MoscowThey were tried behind closed doors and, in most cases, convicted to long prison terms.

In 2022, Putin urged the security services to “severely suppress the actions of foreign intelligence services, and immediately identify traitors, spies and saboteurs.”

Lawyer Yevgeny Smirnov told The Associated Press that the First Circle, a rights group that specializes in such prosecutions and takes its name from a division of the security services, counted more than 100 known treason cases in 2023. He added that there may be another 100 cases that no one knows about.

The longer the war goes on, the more the authorities will want to arrest “more traitors,” Smirnov said.

Cases of betrayal began to increase after 2014, when Russia illegally annexed Crimea from Ukraine, threw its weight behind a separatist rebellion in the eastern part of the country, and broke with the West for the first time since the Cold War.

two years ago, The legal definition of treason has been expanded. This includes providing vaguely defined “assistance” to foreign countries or organizations, exposing anyone in contact with foreigners to prosecution.

The move came in the wake of mass anti-government protests in Moscow in 2011 and 2012, which officials claimed were instigated by the West. The changes to the law have been heavily criticized by human rights advocates, including those on the Presidential Council for Human Rights.

Faced with this criticism at the time, Putin promised to consider the amended law and agreed that “there should not be any broad interpretation of what high treason means.”

Yet this is exactly what has begun to happen.

In 2015, authorities arrested Svetlana Davydova, a mother of seven in the western Smolensk region, on charges of treason under the new, expanded definition of the crime.

She was accused of contacting the Ukrainian embassy in Moscow in 2014 to warn officials there that she believed Russia was sending troops into eastern Ukraine, where a separatist rebellion against Kiev was unfolding.

The case sparked national attention and public outrage. At the time, Russia denied its forces were involved in eastern Ukraine, and many have pointed out that the case against Davydova contradicts that narrative. The charges against her were eventually dropped..

This outcome was a rare exception in the treason and espionage cases that multiplied in subsequent years and which consistently ended in convictions and prison sentences.

Paul Whelan, a US corporate security executive who traveled to Moscow to attend a wedding, was Arrested in 2018 and convicted of espionage Two years later he was sentenced to 16 years in prison, and denied the charges against him.

Ivan Safronov, an adviser to Russia’s space agency Roscosmos and a former military affairs journalist, was convicted of treason in 2022. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison.His prosecution was widely seen as retaliation for his reporting that exposed military incidents and shady arms deals.

“It’s a very good cautionary tale for them that journalists shouldn’t write anything about the defense sector,” his fiancée and fellow journalist Ksenia Mironova told The Associated Press.

The FSB also went after scientists studying aerodynamics, hypersonics and other areas that could be used in weapons development.

Such arrests increased after 2018, when Putin, in his annual state of the nation address, touted new and unique hypersonic weapons that Russia was developing, according to Smirnov, the lawyer.

In his view, this was the security services’ way of showing the Kremlin that Russian scientific advances, especially those used in weapons development, were so valuable that “all foreign intelligence services in the world were after them.”

He stressed that all the detained scientists are civilians, and that they “almost never pursue military scientists.”

Many of the scientists have denied the charges against them. Their families and colleagues have insisted that they were involved in something benign, such as giving lectures abroad or working with foreign scientists on joint projects.

Kolker, the son of the detained physicist from Novosibirsk, said that Russian Federal Security Service agents searched his father’s apartment, looking for several presentations he used in lectures he gave in China.

Maxim Kolker said that Kolker Sr., who studied light waves, gave presentations that were approved for use abroad and were also given inside Russia, and “any student could understand that he did not reveal anything (secret) in them.”

However, FSB officers plucked the 54-year-old physicist from his hospital bed in 2022 and flew him to Moscow, to Lefortovo prison, his son said.

The son said the ailing scientist called his family from the plane to say goodbye, knowing he was unlikely to survive prison. Within days, the family received a telegram informing them of his death in hospital.

There have been other similar cases. Valery Golubkin, a 71-year-old physicist from Moscow who specialized in aerodynamics, died after being hit by a car. Convicted of treason in 2023His state-owned research institute was working on an international project for a supersonic civil aircraft, and his employer asked him to help prepare reports on the project.

Smirnov, of the First Section group that helped defend him, says the reports were vetted before being sent abroad and did not contain state secrets.

Golubkin’s daughter, Lyudmila, said the arrest in 2021 came as a shock.

“He is not guilty of anything,” she said. His 12-year sentence was upheld despite appeals, and his family now hope he will be released on bail.

Other scientists working on hypersonics, a field with important applications in missile development, have also been arrested on treason charges in recent years. One of them, Anatoly Maslov, 77, was convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison in May.

The Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics in Novosibirsk wrote a letter in support of Maslov and two other physicists involved in “giving presentations at international symposia and conferences, publishing articles in highly rated journals, and participating in international scientific projects.” Such activities, the letter said, are “an obligatory part of serious and high-quality scientific activity,” both in Russia and elsewhere.

Two other recent high-profile cases involved a prominent opposition politician and a journalist.

Vladimir Kara-MurzaIn 2022, the journalist-turned-activist was charged with treason after giving speeches in the West critical of Russia. After surviving what he believed were poisoning attempts in 2015 and 2017, Kara-Murza was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison, with his family fearing for his deteriorating health.

In his closing statement during the trial, Kara-Murza referred to the dark legacy of the trials in the Soviet Union, saying the country had “returned to the 1930s.”

The Wall Street Journal Ivan Gershkovich was arrested in 2023. on espionage charges, the first American journalist to be arrested on such charges since the Cold War. Gershkovich, who He was tried in June.Mohammed denies the charges against him, and the US government has said he is being held unjustly.

Reports indicate that the Russians have been charged with treason — or the less serious charge of “preparing treason” — for their actions, including donating money to Ukrainian charities or groups fighting alongside Kyiv’s forces, setting fire to military recruitment offices in Russia, and even private phone conversations with friends in Ukraine about moving there.

Ksenia Khavana, 33, was arrested. In February, Ukrainian authorities arrested a dual Russian-American citizen in Yekaterinburg on treason charges, accusing him of raising money for the Ukrainian military. The dual Russian-American citizen had returned from Los Angeles to visit family, and the First Instance said the charges stemmed from a $51 donation to a U.S.-based charity that helps Ukraine.

There are several factors. Encouraging authorities to pursue more treason casesexperts say.

One reason is that the decision sends a clear message that the unwritten rules have changed, and that holding conferences abroad or working with foreign counterparts is no longer something scientists should do, says Andrei Soldatov, an investigative journalist and security services expert.

He says it’s also easier to convince higher authorities to devote resources to the treason case, such as surveillance or eavesdropping.

According to Smirnov, the rise in prosecutions came after the FSB in 2022 allowed its regional branches to prosecute certain types of treason, and officials in those branches sought to curry favor with their superiors to advance their careers.

What is most important, Soldatov said, is the FSB’s genuine and widespread belief in the “fragility of the regime” in times of political upheaval — whether through mass protests, as in 2011 and 2012, or now during the war with Ukraine.

“They genuinely believe it can break,” he added, even if it doesn’t actually.

Mironova, the fiancée of imprisoned journalist Safronov, expressed the same sentiment.

She said FSB investigators believe they are arresting “traitors” and “enemies of the motherland,” even when they know they have no evidence against them.