Born in 1990, Ivan Safronov was a journalist for the prestigious Moscow dailies Knowledge et Kommersantrather liberal, before working briefly, in 2020, alongside Dmitri Rogozin, then boss of the Russian space agency Roscosmos.
Arrested in July of the same year by the FSB, the powerful internal security services of the Russian Federation, he was accused of “state treason” for allegedly delivering classified defense information to Germany and the Czech Republic, and incarcerating in the high-security prison of Lefortovo, near Moscow. Two years later, on Tuesday August 30, the prosecutor requested a twenty-four-year prison sentence in the closed trial which has been held since March 5, in the midst of the war in Ukraine, in the Russian capital.
“To declare myself guilty is to admit that journalistic work is a crime in Russia. I will never agree to this. It’s up to you to determine what happens to journalism in our country,” he said during his last speech in court to the address of the judges, according to the Russian service of the BBC, who publishes his entire speech.
This sentence – particularly heavy, even for Russian standards in the matter – has caused a stir in the Russian opposition press. The online newspaper Medusa, based in Latvia and declared a “foreign agent” by Russian justice, recalls that such sentences have been imposed in recent years against serial killers and terrorists.
“Unfair” trial
The information site Project combed through the indictment to conclude that most of the information Safronov allegedly gave to the West is “available on the Internet” – and especially in his own articles. The journalist himself believes that these lawsuits are a retaliatory measure from the FSB, which initially offered him, in vain, to reveal his sources.
The press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders called his trial a“unfair”. According to the Paris-based NGO, the real reason for the relentlessness of Russian justice against him would be his revelations on the sale of Sukhoi Su-35 fighters to Egypt in March 2019, as well as on the accident of the sub- top secret sailor Locharikwhich claimed the lives of fourteen sailors in the same year.
His former employer, the business daily Kommersant, recounts that, shortly before his requisition, the prosecutor would have proposed to divide the sentence he intended to claim by two if Ivan Safronov admitted his guilt. To which the latter would have replied that “the honor [lui était] more expensive than freedom”. “I cannot admit my guilt for a crime I did not commit. As for blaming others for it, as I have been advised, that directly contradicts my upbringing and the principles of life that my parents and family instilled in me.” he said again as his last words in court. The verdict is expected on September 5.