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Robert Shonov, identified as a former employee of the US Embassy in Russia, was arrested in the Russian city of Vladivostok and charged with conspiracy, according to Russian state news agency Tass. The report did not specify nationality.
Vedant Patel, a State Department spokesman, told reporters at a briefing on Monday that he had seen the report but “I don’t have anything additional to offer at this time.”
Tass, citing an anonymous law enforcement official, said Mr. Shonov was accused of “covert collaboration with a foreign country or an international or foreign organization.” He has been taken to Lefortovo Prison in Moscow, Tass reported, and no court date has been set.
Held in total isolation at Lefortovo, a notorious high-security prison whose current inmates include Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal correspondent accused of espionage in March, claims that his employers and American officials have been in denial. It’s also where Paul Whelan, a former US Marine who was sentenced to 16 years on what the United States says was trumped-up espionage charges, is being held for 20 months until his trial in 2020. He is now a forced laborer. camp several hundred miles away.
During the Soviet era, the KGB kept Soviet prisoners in prisons, and more recently used them to isolate Kremlin opponents.
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