The Kremlin on Thursday said it was in contact with the French authorities over the fate of a French political scholar serving a three-year sentence in Russia and reportedly facing new charges of espionage. <\/p>\n
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russia has made \u201can offer to the French\u201d regarding Laurent Vinatier, arrested in Moscow last year and convicted of collecting military information<\/a>, and that \u201cthe ball is now in France\u2019s court.\u201d He refused to provide details, citing the sensitivity of the matter. <\/p>\n French President Emmanuel Macron is following Vinatier\u2019s situation closely, his office said in a statement. French Foreign Ministry spokesperson Pascal Confavreux said Thursday that all government services are fully mobilized to pay provide consular support to Vinatier and push for his liberation as soon as possible.<\/p>\n Peskov\u2019s remarks come after journalist J\u00e9r\u00f4me Garro of the French TF1 TV channel asked President Vladimir Putin during his annual news conference<\/a> on Dec. 19 whether Vinatier\u2019s family could hope for a presidential pardon or his release in a prisoner exchange. Putin said he knew \u201cnothing\u201d about the case, but promised to look into it. <\/p>\n Vinatier was arrested in Moscow in June 2024<\/a>. Russian authorities accused him of failing to register as a \u201cforeign agent\u201d while collecting information about Russia\u2019s \u201cmilitary and military-technical activities\u201d that could be used to the detriment of national security. The charges carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison. <\/p>\n The arrest came as tensions flared between Moscow and Paris following French President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s comments about the possibility of deploying French troops in Ukraine<\/a>. <\/p>\n Vinatier\u2019s lawyers asked the court to sentence him to a fine, but the judge in October 2024 handed him a three-year prison term \u2014 a sentence described as \u201cextremely severe\u201d by France\u2019s Foreign Ministry, which called for the scholar\u2019s immediate release. <\/p>\n Detentions on charges of spying<\/a> and collecting sensitive data have become increasingly frequent in Russia and its heavily politicized legal system since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022.<\/p>\n In addition to criticizing his sentence, the French Foreign Ministry urged the abolition of Russia\u2019s laws on foreign agents, which subject those carrying the label to additional government scrutiny and numerous restrictions. Violations can result in criminal prosecution. The ministry said the legislation \u201ccontributes to a systematic violation of fundamental freedoms in Russia, like the freedom of association, the freedom of opinion and the freedom of expression.\u201d<\/p>\n Vinatier is an adviser for the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, a Switzerland-based nongovernmental organization, which said in June 2024 that it was doing \u201ceverything possible to assist\u201d him.<\/p>\n While asking the judge for clemency ahead of the verdict, Vinatier pointed to his two children and his elderly parents he has to take care of.<\/p>\n The charges against Vinatier relate to a law that requires anyone collecting information on military issues to register with authorities as a foreign agent.<\/p>\n Human rights activists have criticized the law and other recent legislation as part of a Kremlin crackdown<\/a> on independent media and political activists intended to stifle criticism of the war in Ukraine. <\/p>\n In August 2025, Russian state news agency Tass reported that Vinatier was also charged with espionage, citing court records but giving no details. Those convicted of espionage in Russia face between 10 and 20 years in prison. <\/p>\n Russia in recent years has arrested a number of foreigners \u2014 mainly U.S. citizens \u2014 on various criminal charges and then released them in prisoner swaps with the United States and other Western nations. The largest exchange since the Cold War took place in August 2024, when Moscow freed journalists Evan Gershkovich<\/a> and Alsu Kurmasheva<\/a>, fellow American Paul Whelan<\/a>, and Russian dissidents<\/a> in a multinational deal that set two dozen people free<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Kremlin on Thursday said it was in contact with the French authorities over the fate of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[200263,7667,34,2002,2000,299,200264,36,4179,7147,200262,200137,2003,2301,200265,200266,285,332,7659,7661,657,333,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-654744","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-alsu-kurmasheva","9":"tag-dmitry-peskov","10":"tag-emmanuel-macron","11":"tag-espionage","12":"tag-eu","13":"tag-europe","14":"tag-evan-gershkovich","15":"tag-france","16":"tag-general-news","17":"tag-indictments","18":"tag-jrme-garro","19":"tag-laurent-vinatier","20":"tag-law-enforcement","21":"tag-moscow","22":"tag-pascal-confavreux","23":"tag-paul-whelan","24":"tag-politics","25":"tag-russia","26":"tag-russia-government","27":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","28":"tag-ukraine","29":"tag-vladimir-putin","30":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115782412410713680","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}