Russian reporter accused of being Nato spy facing ‘absurd’ charges

A PROMINENT Russian defence reporter faces treason charges that could see him sent to prison for up to 20 years after he was arrested yesterday.

Ivan Safronov, 30, was detained outside his Moscow home by Russia’s FSB intelligence agents and is accused of spying for an unnamed Nato country, thought to be the Czech Republic.

Mr Safronov quit journalism just two months earlier to join Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, as information adviser to Dmitry Rogozin, its director general. He is now in custody, facing treason charges which carry between 12 to 20 years in prison.

Mr Safronov worked for business daily Kommersant for a decade before he was fired after an apparent censorship scandal. He then moved to the Vedomosti newspaper, quitting less than a year later following the appointment of a pro-kremlin editor.

As a defence reporter, Mr Safronov followed in the footsteps of his father, Ivan Snr. who also worked for Kommersant. He died in murky circumstances after falling out of a window at his home in 2007 while investigating a sensitive story about Russia’s arms sales in the Middle East. Police did not find any foul play in his death.

The FSB said yesterday: “Safronov was performing tasks for the intelligence agency of a Nato country, gathering secret information about Russia’s military contracts, defence and security and passing it on to its representative.”

The arrest has sent shock waves through Russia’s journalist community where Mr Safronov was always regarded as an apolitical, stellar reporter.

Russian journalists came out to the FSB’S fortresslike headquarters in Moscow to protest against their former colleague’s arrest.

Unlike journalists who have been documenting the stunning wealth of Vladimir Putin’s friends and family and who have faced firings and intimidation, Mr Safronov focused on defence and space.

In a statement yesterday, Kommersant described Mr Safronov as a “true patriot of Russia who covered the army and space because he genuinely cared about them... Accusations of treason against him look absurd,” it said.

The treason charges mean Mr Safronov will face closed hearings and that his defence will not be able to share any substantial details of his case with the public.

Mr Safronov often travelled with the Kremlin press pool as a Kommersant reporter which, according to media watchers, raises questions about the incompetence of the Russian intelligence or the fictitious nature of the charges against the journalist.

Asked about the former reporter’s arrest, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that he had no reason to doubt the FSB’S “quality work”, and he insisted that the investigation was not linked to his work as a journalist.

But the Roscosmos space agency insisted earlier that the charges against Mr Safronov date back to a period prior to his employment as an adviser to the Roscosmos director-general.