In the climate of acute confrontation between Moscow and Paris, the arrest in the Russian capital of Frenchman Laurent Vinatier on Thursday, June 6, has all the makings of a diplomatic event likely to further strain the bilateral relationship. The President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, raised his case by speaking in the evening on television, placing it in line with the “poisoning”, ” threat “ And ” Provocation “ carried out by the Kremlin against France.
The images of the arrest of this 48-year-old man, a specialist in the post-Soviet space and involved in attempts at informal mediation in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, were broadcast at midday by the Investigative Committee , a powerful Russian judicial body reporting directly to the Kremlin. We see Mr. Vinatier, whose face is blurred, approached on the terrace of a Moscow café by masked men in uniform, whom he follows, without resistance, to a van parked nearby.
In the process, the Russian side made serious accusations: Mr. Vinatier would have, for several years, “collected information in the field of military and military-technical activities of the Russian Federation”information “that can be used against the security of the State”.
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The use of such a term may have initially suggested an accusation of espionage. But the legal argument put forward, for the moment, by Moscow is more subtle – but also less serious. Laurent Vinatier is criticized for not having reported himself as a “foreign agent”, a label intended to be infamous, which poisons the lives of those thus designated and which, since 2019, has been extended to foreigners. It was on this basis that he was formally charged on Friday morning.
“In no case does he work for France”
According to Russian justice, Mr. Vinatier should have, himself, understood that he could fall within the scope of this legislation and asked to be placed on the register in question. Under this same charge, Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva has been detained since October 2023.
Laurent Vinatier has an atypical profile on the Moscow market. Doctor in philosophy, researcher specializing in Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia, subjects of most of his books, he made regular stays in the Russian capital. As a teacher, he had collaborated with several think tanks, including the Thomas-More Institute.
In 2014, he joined the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, a discreet institution based in Switzerland, which works, often in cooperation with the United Nations, in the field of informal diplomacy and conflict mediation. The chairman of its board of directors is the former French diplomat Pierre Vimont.
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