The Russian photographer receives 16 years in prison for the details of the Soviet era bunker | Freedom of news from the press

Grigory SKVORTSOV, who denies reprehensible acts by sharing the details of the bunkers, will serve his sentence in a maximum security prison.

A Russian court found a photographer guilty of betrayal and imprisoned him for 16 years for having allegedly shared information on the underground bunkers of the Soviet era with an American journalist.

On Thursday, the Tribunal of the West City of Perm condemned Grigory Skvortssov after a trial on closed doors, without giving more details on the accusations. SKVORTSOV, who was arrested by the Russian authorities in 2023, denied any reprehensible act.

The court said that SKVORESSOV would serve its sentence in a maximum security of corrective security prison camps.

He also published a photograph of him in a glass audience room dressed in black while he was listening to the Verdict Read.

In an interview of December 2024 with Pervy Otdel, a group of exiled Russian lawyers, SKVORTSOV said that he had transmitted information accessible to the public online or available to the Russian author of a book on the underground installations of the Soviet era for use in the event of a nuclear war.

Skvortssov did not appoint the American journalist with whom he worked in the interview with Pervy Otdel.

Since his invasion of neighboring Ukraine in 2022, Russia has radically expanded its definition of what constitutes state secrets and has imprisoned academics, scientists and journalists he judges against the new rules.

SKVORTESSOV, specializing in architecture photography, also spoke publicly against Moscow’s military offensive on Ukraine. He alleged that the officers of the Federal Security Service (FSB) beat him during his arrest in November 2023 and declared that they had tried to force him under the constraint to admit the guilt of the betrayal.

An online support group for SKVORTSOV said on Telegram after the verdict that “a miracle did not occur” and that the photographer’s only hope was to be exchanged in the context of a prisoner exchange between Russia and the West.

The organization of the rights of the Nobel Prix Peace Memorial has listed SKVORESSOV among those subject to criminal proceedings which are probably “motivated politically and marked by serious legal violations”.

Earlier this year, a Russian court sentenced four journalists to five and a half years in prison each after having condemned them with “extremism” linked to their alleged work with an organization founded by the The head of the deceased opposition Alexey Navalny.