Russian photographer will get a draconian sentence for sending open supply supplies overseas · Global Voices

This article first appeared in Novaya Vkladka on July 9, 2025. An edited model is being republished on Global Voices.

At the tip of June, a court sentenced Grigory Skvortsov, a musician, photographer, and concrete explorer from town of Perm in Russia, to 16 years in a high-security penal colony for state treason. The authorized advocacy group First Department, which defends residents unjustly accused of crimes in opposition to the state, has known as his case one of the absurd of its sort.

Skvortsov, who can also be the founding father of the experimental music mission Jagath and known for a torrent of tasks mixing city exploration, music, and publications in native media, was accused of treason for emailing archives from a e book about Soviet bunkers, which had lengthy been publicly out there and are nonetheless on-line.

In late November 2023, Skvortsov abruptly vanished for a number of days. While this wasn’t uncommon habits for him, folks began to fret. It turned out he had been detained by safety brokers in his house in Perm after which transported the following day to the Federal Security Service’s (FSB) investigative division in Moscow. Weeks later, his supporters realized he was being accused of state treason, with early studies suggesting he had allegedly transmitted categorised info to Americans.

It would take months to uncover that the knowledge concerned within the cost was truly a monograph by historian and Moscow Underground Museum staffer Dmitry Yurkov, titled “Soviet ‘Secret Bunkers’: Urban Special Fortification from the 1930s–1960s,” together with different declassified archival supplies that shaped the premise of the supposedly “secret” e book — which was, in reality, not secret at all.

The web site dedicated to the book said that round 500 paperwork had been utilized in its creation. The museum’s page famous that every one printed copies had offered out and no reprints had been deliberate; nonetheless, the e book remains to be out there without cost on-line and can be present in Russian libraries.

The e book obtained widespread media protection, together with opinions in Rossiyskaya Gazeta and different official media retailers. When it was launched in 2021, authors Dmitry Yurkov and illustrator Anastasia Zotova held a public launch event on the Bunker 703 museum, 42 meters (near 138 ft) belowground. A recording of this presentation nonetheless exists. When requested the place the road is drawn between “secret” and “non-secret” supplies, Yurkov responded:

The phrase ‘secret’ is in citation marks on the quilt — similar to the phrase ‘bunker.’ Our laws doesn’t acknowledge phrases like ‘secret bunkers.’ What issues is the classification of paperwork. If the ‘secret’ label is lifted, the doc is publicly out there. Once the federal government deems it not important to nationwide pursuits, it turns into accessible to historians. We restricted the examine to 1969 as a result of no declassified paperwork from after 1970 had been out there.

Adding that Russia’s declassification system is disorganized, Yurkov defined that the identical doc may be declassified in a single archive and nonetheless thought-about “top secret” in one other. He has, nonetheless, averted commenting on Skvortsov’s case, main some within the city exploration group to suspect him of complicity. However, Yurkov later told Novaya Vkladka:

I noticed just one confirmed reality — that it’s a treason case. And in such instances, the intent issues greater than the motion. You might take a photograph out a window and be convicted if you happen to ship it overseas saying, ‘This will help defeat Russia.’ I work on the Moscow Underground Museum, finding out mid-Twentieth-century historical past. My supplies are in libraries and on-line. I don’t know when a doc’s classification may change. No one studies that to me. I’ve no clearance or particular entry. The e book was by no means banned and remains to be publicly out there.

Skvortsov and the archive scans

In a letter to First Department whereas in detention, Skvortsov wrote:

The e book is talked about within the case, however I didn’t ship simply the e book. Yurkov offered extra declassified archive scans — over a thousand pages — which I bought. I mixed these with pictures and diagrams from the web and despatched them to a journalist. I simply wished to share it.

Reports declare Skvortsov was jailed for “sending the ‘Secret Bunkers’ book abroad,” however the story is extra nuanced. Yurkov and his workforce additionally offered a supplementary archive pack of paperwork on which the e book was primarily based. A detailed pal of Skvortsov, talking anonymously, mentioned:

Those paperwork had been blueprints, declassified texts — formally made public. The problem wasn’t the e book, however that Skvortsov allegedly geolocated these outdated diagrams on fashionable maps, revealing website places. Some of those outdated bunkers may nonetheless be in use. You used to have the ability to purchase simply the e book or the e book [and] archives on the web site.

The archive pack actually did exist, and an entry about it stays within the internet archive. It value simply RUB 500 (about USD 6) and was circulated in 2021. There’s no proof it included any categorised supplies on the time it was offered, and Skvortsov probably purchased them throughout that public distribution — however later, one thing modified. Perhaps some declassified supplies had been re-classified, however this isn’t public information as a result of the Russian system is opaque.

Skvortsov denies that he altered or recompiled something in a method that exposed delicate places:

The investigator ignores that the unique file already contained the positioning places. They declare I geo-referenced it and created an ‘electronic map,’ which I didn’t.

In April 2023, Skvortsov claims he emailed the e book and archive pack to Mattathias Schwartz, a US-based freelance journalist. Schwartz has not responded publicly.

According to Skvortsov himself, his intention — on condition that he had no entry to any state secrets and techniques by definition — was pretty easy: a number of years earlier than his arrest, he had expressed a need to publish tales on his favourite matter (industrial tourism, underground buildings, and many others.) in varied retailers, together with these overseas.

This need finally led him to Schwartz, whom he apparently selected at random. Skvortsov despatched him a set of paperwork about Soviet bunkers and tried to barter a contract price for the fabric, however in keeping with Skvortsov, Schwartz turned his pitch down. As a consequence, Skvortsov forbade Schwartz from publishing something.

The Russian court docket, nonetheless, described this act as promoting details about navy infrastructure to a international nationwide for cash, even supposing all of the maps and diagrams had been both from Yurkov’s archive or from public digger web sites. Skvortsov wrote:

These supplies, apparently now thought-about state secrets and techniques, had been freely out there on-line for many years as a result of negligence of the FSB and GUSP [Main Directorate of Special Programs of the President of the Russian Federation].

Skvortsov’s lawyer, Yevgeny Smirnov from First Department, says the case is a part of a disturbing development:

This occurs frequently. The FSB doesn’t inform folks with out safety clearance {that a} doc’s classification has modified. If they did, that itself could be a leak. Many treason instances are primarily based on public information retroactively declared secret.

Skvortsov and the sentence

From jail, Skvortsov insists he solely despatched supplementary supplies, not the e book — however few care. Yurkov, in his personal method, was additionally a casualty, his popularity tarnished.

Matt Schwartz probably doesn’t even bear in mind the trade. Global Voices despatched a message to Schwartz inviting him to debate the case, however no response has but been forthcoming.

In Russia, few establishments stay that may help folks like Skvortsov. Even PERMM, the state modern artwork museum that when hosted his photograph exhibit, is below siege; its former director, Naila Allakhverdieva, has fled the nation and is now wanted for “insulting religious feelings.”

Yet, Skvortsov and his help group stay lively. He’s awaiting attraction in a Perm pre-trial detention heart, hoping both for a regime change, an amnesty or probably, a prisoner trade. He urges readers to subscribe to his Telegram channel “Traitor” — a reputation he selected himself — the place he shares tales of individuals unjustly accused of crimes in opposition to the state. He additionally frequently sends content material, together with notes from his time in Moscow’s Lefortovo Prison.