Convictions handed down this week in a high-profile treason case in Russia have reopened questions about the Russian hacking of the 2016 US presidential election.
On Tuesday, a Russian military court issued lengthy sentences to two top cyber-security experts, Russian news agencies reported. Sergei Mikhailov, a former officer with the Federal Security Service (FSB) — Russia’s domestic intelligence agency — received 22 years in prison. Ruslan Stoyanov, a former Kaspersky Lab employee, was sentenced to 14 years.
Complicating matters is the secrecy surrounding the case. The court proceedings were closed, but Ivan Pavlov, a lawyer for one of the defendants, told CNN that Stoyanov and Mikhailov were involved in a two-year long secretive case of treason “on behalf of the United States.”
“the most severe one for a treason case in the modern history of Russia.”
Pavlov described the sentencing
Russian and international media have long speculated that the secrecy of the proceedings, the timing of the arrest — as well as Mikhailov’s and Stoyanov’s sensitive line of work — indicated the two cyber experts had helped the US investigate the intrusion into the servers of the Democratic National Committee, and the 2016 US election hacking
Andrei Soldatov, an expert on Russian cyber-security and intelligence, believes the arrest of Mikhailov and Stoyanov was a response to the furor in the United States over Russian election meddling. Mikhailov, he said, was the top FSB officer in charge of maintaining contacts with Western security agencies in cyber security, and Stoyanov, in turn, was the top contact person in the Russian private cyber sector with the West.
