Russia sentences U.S. citizen to 15 years in prison for espionage

A Moscow court sentenced U.S. citizen Eugene Spector on Tuesday to a total of 15 years in prison for espionage, Russian state media outlets said.

Spector, who was already serving a 3½-year sentence in Russia for bribery, was handed the more severe charge of espionage in 2023. A new sentence of 13 years in a maximum security penal colony was added Tuesday to the time he had already served, bringing the total to 15 years, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.

The trial was held behind closed doors “due to the secrecy of the case materials,” according to the country’s Interfax news agency. “Only the introductory and resolutive parts of the sentence were announced by the court.”

Spector was born in what was then the Soviet Union and later moved to the United States, where he obtained citizenship. He moved back to Russia as an adult and became an executive at a medical equipment company.

He was detained in 2020 on charges of enabling a bribe to an aide to former Russian deputy prime minister Arkady Dvorkovich. Spector was convicted in a Moscow court the following year and also fined some 14 million rubles, or around $140,000 today.

The aide, Anastasia Alekseyeva, who was reported to have received expensive trips overseas, was sentenced to 12 years in prison, according to Russian media.

In August last year, Russian authorities handed Spector the additional espionage charges, though details of the case were not made public, local media reports said.

Besides Spector, several other Americans are being held in Russia.

Arrests of U.S. citizens in Russia have increased in recent years, in particular since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Washington has accused Moscow of targeting U.S. citizens with baseless charges, with the intention of using them as bargaining chips to secure the release of Russians convicted abroad for serious crimes.

In August, Russia released three Americans, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich – who had been jailed on charges of spying for the United States – as part of the largest international prisoner exchange since the Cold War.