He appeared smiling, wearing a blue shirt and dark jeans and talking to his lawyers. The criminal trial of Frenchman Laurent Vinatier opened on Tuesday in Moscow before being immediately adjourned, and the Frenchman’s pretrial detention extended by six months. The judges of the Zamoskvoretsky court in the capital will have to decide not whether this collaborator of a Swiss NGO arrested in early June in Russia is a spy but whether he complied with the obligation to register as a “foreign agent” with the authorities. Paradoxically, a provision recently added to the Russian Criminal Code (Part III of Article 330.1) requires anyone collecting information on military matters to register with the Russian Ministry of Justice as a foreign agent.
Laurent Vinatier, 48, a researcher specializing in the post-Soviet space and used to traveling to the country often, worked in Russia for the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, a Swiss NGO that mediates conflicts outside official diplomatic channels. His arrest on June 6 in a café in central Moscow by masked agents of the Russian Federal Security Service – the powerful and feared FSB -, filmed and broadcast in the Russian media, came at a time of rising tensions between Paris and Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine, after Emmanuel Macron had defended the idea of sending ground troops there to support Kiev. He was placed in pretrial detention despite a request for release approved by the French embassy or for placement under house arrest.
In July, the FSB said Vinatier had pleaded guilty under interrogation to illegally collecting sensitive Russian military information that could be used by hostile intelligence services. His extensive contacts in recent years with political scientists, sociologists, economists, military experts, and government officials allowed him, according to the KGB’s top heir, to collect military information “that could be used by foreign intelligence services to the detriment of the security of the Russian Federation,” especially since the researcher had kept audio recordings of some of his meetings. At least seven of his contacts have been questioned.
According to the Russian news agency Interfax, since the crime Vinatier is accused of is of “medium gravity” and the Frenchman has admitted to having failed to comply with his registration obligation – which he was unaware of – his case can be examined by the court in a special way that will shorten the hearing time. However, he risks up to five years in prison.
That’s far less than the sentence he could face for espionage. In July, before benefiting on August 1 from the prisoner exchange agreement between Russia and several Western countries supporting Ukraine, American journalist Evan Gershkovich from the Wall Street Journal was sentenced to 16 years in prison for espionage.
In recent years, several Westerners, particularly Americans, have been arrested in Russia and targeted with serious charges, with Washington denouncing hostage-taking to obtain the release of Russians held abroad. Arrests for espionage and collection of sensitive data have become increasingly frequent in Russia since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
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