French researcher Laurent Vinatier, already serving a three-year sentence in Russia for breaching the country’s foreign-agent legislation, now faces a separate investigation for espionage, according to Moscow’s Lefortovo Court documents reported on 20 August. Russian security service FSB accuses the 49-year-old of collecting military information useful to foreign intelligence services, an offence that carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison. A preliminary hearing on the new charge is scheduled for 25 August at 14:30 local time. Vinatier, an adviser at the Geneva-based Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, was jailed in October 2024 after failing to register as a foreign agent while conducting research. His appeal against that verdict was rejected in February. Paris has condemned his detention as arbitrary and has called for his release, with President Emmanuel Macron denying that the scholar acted on behalf of the French state. Vinatier is among several Western nationals prosecuted under Russia’s expanded security laws as diplomatic tensions over the war in Ukraine persist.