Ivan Safronov, a former military reporter and an adviser to the head of the Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos, is facing a new treason charge, that of transferring abroad information about the Russian armed forces' activities in Syria, lawyer Ivan Pavlov told Sputnik on Tuesday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd November, 2021) Ivan Safronov, a former military reporter and an adviser to the head of the Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos, is facing a new treason charge, that of transferring abroad information about the Russian armed forces' activities in Syria, lawyer Ivan Pavlov told Sputnik on Tuesday.
On Monday, a source in law enforcement agencies told Sputnik that the Russian Federal Security Service completed its probe into the high treason criminal case launched against Safronov in 2020.
"Before the completion of the investigation, Safronov was presented with a new final charge. In addition to the count of transferring information to a representative of the Czech intelligence, one more count appeared. According to investigators, in December 2015, Safronov transferred some information about the activities of the Russian armed forces in Syria to political scientist Demuri Voronin, which the latter forwarded to representatives of the University of Zurich in Switzerland and Germany's BND (foreign intelligence service)," Pavlov said.
The Russian Federal Security Service believes that the information "could be used to analyze the actions of Russian troops in Syria," according to the lawyer.
"According to the prosecution, Voronin paid Safronov a $248 reward for this information," Pavlov said.
Voronin is in custody on treason charges. It was never reported before that his case was anyhow connected to that of Safronov.
