French ‘spy’ arrested in Russia pleads guilty to charges of collecting military data… – Firstpost

A French citizen arrested in Russia has pleaded guilty to criminal charges of illegally gathering information on military affairs in the country, state news agency TASS reported on Wednesday.

Laurent Vinatier was arrested in the Russian capital in June as tensions between Moscow and Paris rose following comments by French President Emmanuel Macron about the possibility of sending French troops to Ukraine.

Russian authorities accused Vinatier of failing to register as a “foreign agent” while collecting information about Russia’s “military and military-technical activities” that could be used to harm the country’s security.

Under Russian law, this crime is punishable by up to five years in prison.

Vinatier is an adviser at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, a Geneva-based non-governmental organisation. A judge had previously ordered his pretrial detention until 5 August.

The NGO said in June it was doing “everything possible to help our colleague Laurent,” including by helping him find legal representation.

Russia’s Federal Security Service said on Wednesday that during his visits to Moscow, Vinatier “established numerous contacts with representatives of the expert and scientific community,” including political scientists, sociologists, economists, military experts and government officials, the Russian news agency Interfax reported.

The Investigative Committee of Russia said on Wednesday that it had questioned seven witnesses “with whom the accused held meetings to gather information on military and military-technical activities,” the TASS news agency reported.

Authorities said they had commissioned a “forensic linguistic analysis” of audio recordings of the meetings and of electronic equipment seized from Vinatier.

As reported by the TASS news agency, citing the Investigative Committee, Vinatier admitted his guilt during the interrogation.

The report did not explain why audio recordings of the meetings existed. It also said that Vinatier’s “criminal activities” were stopped by the Investigative Committee and the Russian Federal Security Service.

The charges against Vinatier stem from a recently passed law that requires anyone gathering military intelligence to register with authorities as a foreign agent.

Human rights activists have criticized the law and other recent legislation as part of a multi-pronged Kremlin crackdown on independent media and political activists aimed at stifling criticism of the Kremlin’s actions in Ukraine.

Arrests on charges of espionage and gathering confidential data have become increasingly common in Russia since it sent troops to Ukraine in February 2022.

Recent high-profile arrests include those of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested on espionage charges in March 2023, and American-Russian journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, who was arrested in October 2023 on the same charges as Vinatier.