Comment RIGA, Latvia — A Russian court has sentenced former investigative journalist Ivan Safronov to 22 years in prison on charges of treason, a grim ruling in one of the most high-profile prosecutions of a journalist in Russia in recent years. The harsh sentence is just the latest episode in a Russian crackdown on media and free expression that has shut down nearly all independent media outlets in the country and imposed strict regulations on reporting on the ongoing conflict in neighboring Ukraine. Safronov was arrested in July 2020 and has been held in pre-trial detention since then. Investigators from the FSB, Russia’s domestic intelligence agency, accused him of passing state secrets to German and Czech agents between 2015 and 2017, during his time as a military and space reporter for the Kommersant business daily. The trial was held behind closed doors and the details were not made public. Fleeing Putin’s wartime crackdown, Russian journalists build media hubs in exile Safronov’s supporters say the FSB laid the charges in retaliation for his journalistic work focusing on secret Russian arms trade deals and exposing the misadventures of the country’s defense ministry. In a clip from the courtroom, published by the Rain TV channel, Safronov’s supporters clapped and shouted “Freedom!” after the verdict is delivered. “I love you,” Safronov replied before being led out of the courtroom cage. A leaked indictment published by Russian investigative agency Proekt suggests that the materials Safronov allegedly received from “people with access to state secrets” and passed on to Western intelligence services were public. According to Proekt, Safronov agreed to contribute to a publication that employed his friend, Czech national Martin Larysh, and later wrote about political analyst Dmitry Voronin, who worked for a German-Swiss consulting firm. The detailed pieces Safronov sent to Larysh and Voronin, whom the FSB accuses of being Czech and German agents, respectively, were the basis of the indictment against him. Proekt says the information contained in Safronov’s pieces was already available to Kommersant, some Russian and international media, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency and the Russian Defense Ministry website. The report also notes that during the pretrial investigation, Safronov unsuccessfully asked prosecutors to allow him access to a computer so he could pull the allegedly classified information from online sources. “It is clear to us that the reason for the prosecution of Ivan Safronov is not ‘treason’, which is not supported by anything, but his journalistic work and the articles he published without taking into account the opinion of the Ministry of Defense and Russia. authorities,” Russian investigative outlet Kholod said in a letter calling on Russian authorities to release the journalist. Russia’s long-besieged independent media buckles under Putin’s new crackdown Prosecutors initially sought a 24-year sentence, just a year shy of the maximum sentence. Safronov’s lawyer, Yevgeny Smirnov, said last week that moments before announcing their sentencing request, the prosecutor turned to the journalist and offered him a deal: If he pleaded guilty, the term would be cut in half. Safronov refused. Safronov’s career at Kommersant spanned a decade. He first joined the newspaper as an intern, but quickly rose through the ranks to become one of the most high-profile Russian correspondents covering the defense and space industry. His father, also named Ivan, worked for the same newspaper covering military affairs and died under mysterious circumstances after falling from a window of his apartment building in Moscow. Safronov’s friends and family told Proekt that he regularly received job offers from ministries and state-owned companies – often the same ones he covered – but turned them down to stay in journalism. In 2019, Safronov left Kommersant after a scoop on the impending resignation of Russia’s parliament speaker, an apparent leak that angered officials, who pressured the paper to fire the reporter. Safronov then worked as an adviser to the head of the Russian state space agency Roscosmos for a few months before his arrest. Treason cases are rare in Russia, but are increasingly seen as a way for security services to pressure journalists, scientists and others who investigate sensitive government issues. Trials are always held behind closed doors and the reasons for prosecutions are rarely made public. Ivan Pavlov, who represented Safronov until Russian authorities accused him of divulging details of a preliminary investigation and forced him out of the country, once specialized in espionage and treason cases. In a 2018 report, he wrote: “There are more and more ‘spy’ cases in Russia every year, but very little is known about them, and when information does come out, it raises significant doubts.” “[Charges] intended to punish foreign intelligence officers are applied to housewives, saleswomen, scientists and pensioners,” Pavlov said at the time. “Such cases are investigated and tried under a veil of secrecy, which makes it easier for the police to violate the rights of the accused and generally to fabricate cases out of the blue, for show. We tried to lift that veil.” Another of Safronov’s lawyers, Dmitry Talantov, who took over from Pavlov, was arrested on charges under Russia’s “fake news laws” and faces up to 10 years in prison. In another grim milestone for Russian media, one of Russia’s last independent news outlets, Novaya Gazeta, was officially stripped of its media license on Monday, making it impossible for the newspaper to operate legally inside the country. Novaya Gazeta, a key investigative outlet founded in 1993 and edited by Nobel laureate Dmitry Muratov, suspended operations in March, soon after the war in Ukraine began, after receiving warnings from Russia’s technology and communications regulator. Some of its staff left Russia to launch a new publication, Novaya Gazeta Europe, but the regulator has also banned its website in Russia.
