A Russian photographer has been sentenced to 16 years in prison for treason after a court found him guilty of sharing information about Soviet-era bunkers with an American journalist. Grigory Skvortsov was convicted during a closed trial in Perm, a city in western Russia, and he has consistently denied any wrongdoing.
Skvortsov was arrested in November 2023, and the court did not provide many details about the charges against him. According to reports, he shared information that he claimed was either publicly available or could be purchased from a Russian author who wrote about these underground facilities designed for nuclear war scenarios. He did not disclose the identity of the American journalist involved.
The court has ordered that Skvortsov serve his sentence in a maximum-security prison camp. A photograph released by the court showed him in a glass cage, dressed in black, as the verdict was announced.
In an interview with a group of exiled Russian lawyers, Skvortsov spoke about his case. He claimed that he was beaten by officers from the Federal Security Service (FSB) during his arrest and was pressured to confess to treason under duress. His case is seen as part of a broader crackdown on dissent in Russia, especially following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which has led to stricter definitions of state secrets.
Skvortsov, who specializes in architecture photography, has also publicly criticized Russia’s military actions in Ukraine. An online support group for him expressed disappointment after the verdict, stating that his only hope for release might be through a prisoner exchange between Russia and Western countries.
The rights organization Memorial has labeled Skvortsov’s prosecution as politically motivated, highlighting serious legal violations in the process. This case follows a trend in Russia where journalists, academics, and others have been jailed under increasingly harsh laws concerning state secrets and extremism, especially those associated with opposition figures like the late Alexey Navalny.