Aide to Russian space chief held on treason charges

A former journalist and aide to the head of Russia's space agency Roscosmos was detained on Tuesday on charges of treason for divulging state military secrets, Russian authorities said Tuesday.

Roscosmos said in a statement that the detention of Ivan Safronov in Moscow was not related to his employment at the space agency and that investigators had launched a probe.

"An investigation is underway," Roscosmos said, adding that it was "fully cooperating with the investigative authorities".

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that he was accused of "committing high treason" and "transferring secret information to foreign intelligence services".

He added that as far as the Kremlin was aware, Safronov's detention was "absolutely unrelated" to his previous work as a journalist.

The Federal Security Services (FSB) published a video of Ivan Safronov's arrest in Moscow, showing two plainclothes security personnel in masks escorting the Roscosmos aide into a van.

The FSB told news agency TASS that Safronov was collecting confidential data about Russia's military and technical cooperation and handing it to the service of the intelligence services of a NATO member country.

A source earlier told news agency Interfax that Safronov's detention could be linked to his work in journalism and that he did not have clearance to access state secrets as a Roscosmos employee.

Safronov was previously a high-profile journalist working for the independent Kommersant and Vedomosti newspapers where he reported on politics, the military, and Russia's space programmes.

He began working as an information policy aide at Roscosmos in May this year.

In 2019, Kommersant removed from its website an article co-authored by Safronov about the delivery of Russian jets to Egypt after court proceedings were opened into the disclosure of state secrets.

He was forced to resign from Kommersant in May last year following the publication of an article he co-authored which reported that the speaker of Russia's upper house of parliament was planning to step down.

The entire politics desk of the newspaper resigned in protest against the dismissal of Safronov and another colleague whose name appeared on the story.

A number of former colleagues spoke out against Safronov's detention on social networks on Tuesday, saying the former journalist was being persecuted for his reporting and that he was innocent of the charges.

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