The Russian security service "FSB" arrested a former military affairs journalist Ivan Safronov, who works as an assistant director of the Russian Space Agency, and the authorities accused him of betraying the state.

On Tuesday, the Russian Space Agency (Roskosmos) said in a statement that Safronov's arrest was not linked to his work with the agency.

On the other hand, the Russian Information Agency quoted the security service "FSB" as saying that Safronov is accused of working for the intelligence service of a country that he did not identify from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and was providing him with classified military information, according to the agency.

Safronov appeared before a Moscow court, where the judge decided to detain him for two months, pending the case. A charge of treason may lead to Safronov prison for up to 20 years.

FSB agents arrested Russian space chief advisor and former journalist Ivan Safronov On July 7 on suspicion of state treason. Russian journalists are holding single picket protests outside the FSB building in Moscow

Read more here: https://t.co/PbpCiKcEJZ pic.twitter.com/N6mnHKgacV

- The Moscow Times (@MoscowTimes) July 7, 2020

Safronov joined the Russian Space Agency last May to work as a media consultant, and was previously a journalist for the Kommersant and Vedomosti newspapers.

Last year, Russia's TASS news agency, citing a judicial source, said the Russian prosecutor had sought to indict Kommersant, for unveiling an unspecified state secret.

The "Bell" website at the time indicated that a press report prepared by Safronov had subsequently disappeared from the website of the Kommersant newspaper.

Egyptian-Russian deal

The report, which is still blocked, stated that Egypt has signed a deal with Russia to buy more than 20 multi-functional Sukhoi 35 fighters.

When the news leaked, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threatened Egypt with sanctions if it went ahead with that deal.

Safronov said that he was forced to leave the newspaper last year, after the publishing company objected to another report in which he indicated that Valentina Matviyenko, head of the Federation Council of the Russian Parliament, may leave her position.

A spokesman for Matviyenko - still in the position - denied the report at the time.

Solidarity and detentions

Journalists in Russia expressed their solidarity with Safronov after news of his arrest, and a limited number of them demonstrated in front of the FSB building, and there were news and pictures of some of them being arrested.

Ksenia Sobchak has been detained at pickets in support of Ivan Safronov. https://t.co/n3qE8RO2Wd

- X Soviet (@XSovietNews) July 7, 2020

Commentators, activists, and journalists saw Safronov as a victim of false accusations, and that he, like other journalists, had targeted a campaign by the Kremlin against them.

A western journalist noted that Ivan Safronov's father - who was of the same name and was also a journalist specializing in military affairs for the Kommersant newspaper - died in 2007 at the age of 51, in mysterious circumstances, and was said to have fallen from the window of his house on the fifth floor.

Deja vu in #Moscow: Vladimir Putin's FSB spy agency has arrested reporter Ivan Safranov and charged him with treason. Here's my @Guardian story from 2007 after Safranov's father - also Ivan, and a journalist with Kommersant newspaper - 'fell' to his death https://t.co/zMpYcZ7aUL

- Luke Harding (@ lukeharding1968) July 7, 2020