Russian academic charged with treason confirmed to be in Moscow’s Lefortovo Prison

A highly respected Russian geophysicist and archaeologist who has spent over a year in custody awaiting trial for treason has been confirmed to be at Moscow’s infamous FSB-run Lefortovo Prison, Russian human rights organisation First Department said on Tuesday.

Andrey Veryanov was detained in Moscow on 5 December 2023, and placed under arrest by Moscow’s Lefortovo District Court that same month. While Mediazona reported at the time that a man with his surname had been arrested, the court decided not to publicly disclose his first name and patronymic as the charges concerned treason.

While the basis for the case is unknown as all the legal material is classified, First Department believes that Veryanov is likely being prosecuted for protesting against the invasion of Ukraine.

Until his return to Russia to care for a close relative in 2019, Veryanov had been living and working in Peru for over 20 years. However, in his own words, he “got stuck” in Russia, first due to the pandemic and then to the war in Ukraine.

“From the moment I arrived in Russia, I couldn’t accept the nightmare the country had immersed itself in. I went to whatever protests and rallies I could. … I tried to resist and looked for like-minded people,” Veryanov said in a letter from detention that was shared by First Department.

First Department said Veryanov had no family in Russia and urged members of the public to write him letters of support and send him textbooks for Spanish, which, it said, he was teaching his fellow inmates.

Veryanov is a well-known geophysicist and archaeologist whose team studied Sacsayhuamán, an Inca citadel and temple complex on the outskirts of the Peruvian city of Cusco, the historical Inca capital, in 2012. During the study, they made a number of important discoveries that furthered understanding of how Cusco was destroyed, First Department said.