The Moscow City Court sentenced political scientist Demuri Voronin, who was accused of treason against journalist Ivan Safronov, to more than 13 years in prison. This is reported by "Vesti".
Voronin was arrested in February 2021 on charges of treason for allegedly selling information received from Safronov to foreign intelligence agencies. The indictment, which was published by Proekt at the end of last year, alleged that Safronov and Voronin passed secret information about the activities of the Russian Armed Forces in Syria to German intelligence and the University of Zurich in Switzerland.
Ivan Safronov, who worked as a journalist for Kommersant and Vedomosti, and also served as an adviser to the head of Roscosmos, was detained in July 2020. The FSB stated that the journalist, "carrying out the task of one of NATO's special services, collected and handed over to its representative information on military-technical cooperation, defense and security of the Russian Federation that constitutes a state secret." On September 5, 2022, the court found Safronov guilty of treason and sentenced him to 22 years in a strict regime colony.
The Safronov case could be related to his article about the supply of Russian MiG aircraft to Egypt, published in Kommersant in the spring of 2019. After this publication, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threatened Egypt with sanctions for the purchase of Russian fighters. During the investigation, the FSB offered Safronov to make a deal and hand over his sources, but he refused.