The Russian intelligence agency has arrested a public relations advisor for the head of the Russian space agency "Roskosmos" on charges of treason, the Interfax news agency reported on Tuesday.
The report indicated that the arrested advisor is Ivan Safronov, who was working as a journalist for the prominent newspapers "Kommersant" and "Vedomosti", and he took over as media policy advisor to Dmitry Rogozin, President of Roskosmos only two months ago.
The report pointed out that the issue "may be related to his previous journalistic work and publications on the army." Roscosmos also confirmed that the issue is not related to Safronov's work at the Space Agency.
It is worth noting that treason is a crime punishable by up to 20 years in Russia.
Safronov was forced to leave the newspaper "Kommersant" last year after an article in which he claimed that the President of the Council of the Russian Federation Valentina Matviyenko would leave her position soon to become the President of the Russian Pension Fund.
"The advisor to the Director General of the Russian Space Agency" Roskosmos ", Ivan Safronov, was arrested in Moscow. Safronov was assigned to carry out tasks for a NATO intelligence agency, and to collect and hand over state secrets related to military cooperation Technical, Defense and Security in Russia to the agency representative. "