Moscow charges Tatyana Felgengauer in absentia as pressure mounts on foreign agents

On a recent Tuesday, a Moscow court sentenced Gene Spector, a US citizen born in Russia, to 15 years in prison for espionage. This sentence added to his previous four-year prison term for bribery, bringing his total sentence to 15 years. Spector, who had pleaded guilty in 2020 to mediating bribes, was accused of being involved in complex espionage activities, although his specific actions remain unclear. He was fined 14,116,805 rubles as part of this ruling. A US official mentioned that the country was aware of Spector's earlier imprisonment, indicating that the US government had limited information on the new charges, reflecting ongoing tensions between the US and Russia.