MOSCOW. Nov 6 (Interfax) - Two U.S. diplomats were expelled from Russia in 2023 in relation to the case of former employee of the U.S. consulate general in Vladivostok Robert Shonov, convicted of confidential cooperation with representatives of a foreign state, the Federal Security Service (FSB) public relations center said on Wednesday.
"The Americans were declared personae non-gratae and expelled from the territory of the Russian Federation because of spying," the FSB said.
Last Friday, the Primorye Territorial Court convicted Shonov of confidential cooperation with representatives of a foreign state and sentenced him to four years and ten months in a general penitentiary.
The sentence has yet to take effect.
According to the FSB, Shonov worked at the U.S. consulate general in Vladivostok in 1999-2021 and was dismissed due to its closure.
"After the Russian Armed Forces launched the special military operation, the Russian citizen decided to reinstate contact with the Americans and assist in their anti-Russian activity. The Americans offered him secret cooperation as a confidential informant of the political department of the U.S. embassy in Moscow," the FSB said.
According to the FSB, Shonov's activity "was supervised directly by First Secretary of the Political Department of the U.S. embassy in Moscow Jeffrey Hancock Sillin and Second Secretary David Samuel Bernstein."
"From fall 2022 until March 2023, Shonov was accomplishing assignments of his handlers for remuneration. He gathered information about the special military operation and mobilization processes in Russian regions, detected problems, and evaluated their influence on the population. The U.S. side was particularly interested in information about the Russian presidential election of 2024," it said.
Shonov was also "searching for and choosing members of the expert and journalist communities in the Far Eastern Federal District and Siberia loyal to the United States and ready to stay in contact with the Americans during the special military operation and to provide information of interest to the U.S. Department of State," the FSB said.
Shonov was detained in Vladivostok in March 2023.
"Sillin and Bernstein assured Shonov it was safe to cooperate with them and there was no risk of the informant being uncovered by Russian security services. However, they refused to provide any assistance after his detention, limiting themselves to the routine accusation against the Russian authorities from the rostrum of the U.S. State Department," the FSB said.
U.S. Ambassador Lynne Tracy was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry on September 14, 2023, "and a strong demarche was made to the U.S. diplomatic mission chief in connection with the interference in Russian internal affairs by Sillin and Bernstein."