Journalist Ivan Safronov spent about two weeks in a punishment cell , he said in a letter to activist Olga Yelsakova. Safronov began the letter on June 1, but was only able to finish it on the 18th.
“Today, June 18, Sunday, I couldn’t finish this news due to the fact that on the same day I was locked up in the ShIZO, and then transferred to the medical unit – and, apparently, they will be placed there again on Tuesday,” he writes.
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 state secrets." On September 5, 2022, the court found Safronov guilty of "treason" and sentenced him to 22 years in a strict regime colony. Safronov does not admit his guilt.
Last year, the investigative publication Proekt published an indictment in the Safronov case, from which it follows that none of the witnesses in the case knows anything about Safronov's "crimes", and the "secrets" that Safronov allegedly divulged are in the public domain.