Russian photographer imprisoned for giving American journalist a book on Soviet bunkers

A court in the city of Perm in the Urals has sentenced a photographer to 16 years in a high-security prison on charges of treason, after he was accused of giving an unnamed American journalist a book about Soviet-era bunkers, according to a Telegram group supporting the defendant.

Grigory Skvortsov, a well-known photographer and musician from the Perm region, was first detained in Moscow in November 2023. While in police custody, Skvortsov was beaten and forced to admit guilt, according to an interview he gave to human rights NGO First Department. In January 2024, he was formally charged with treason and placed in pretrial detention.

The court proceedings were held entirely behind closed doors, as is typical for cases relating to treason, which is why the details of Skvortsov’s case remain unclear, including the name of the journalist he allegedly shared the book with.

Russian authorities accused Skvortsov of giving the journalist a book by historian Dmitry Yurkov titled Soviet “Secret Bunkers”: Urban Special Fortifications of the 1930s-1960s. In his interview with First Department, Skvortsov said that he did not hand over the book itself, but rather photographs of declassified archival documents sold by Yurkov that accompanied the book.

Yurkov’s book remains publicly available, and Russian state-affiliated media, including Rossiyskaya Gazeta, have reported on it and the declassified materials it covers. According to its author, the book is the product of research spanning approximately 2,000 pages of archives related to the infamous Metro-2, Stalin-era bunkers, government shelters, and other Soviet fortifications.

“I had no access to state secrets and had no malicious intent, therefore there is no subjective side of the crime in my actions. The data was not considered confidential by the state, therefore there is no objective side either”, Skvortsov told First Department. He has denied all charges against him.