Support The Moscow Times!

Russian Urban Exploration Blogger Gets Prison Sentence for Sharing State Secrets

Andrei Pyzh. memohrc.org

A St. Petersburg blogger known for exploring abandoned urban and industrial sites has been sentenced to prison for spreading state secrets abroad.

Investigators say Andrei Pyzh, 37, illegally obtained information relating to the design and technical features of classified facilities in the Moscow region from December 2018 until the time of his August 2020 detention. 

The Moscow City Court found Pyzh guilty of illegally obtaining and disseminating state secrets and sentenced him to five years in prison, it said in a statement Friday.

Pyzh pleaded not guilty to the charges, which are punishable by a maximum of eight years in jail.

At the time of his detention, the state-run TASS news agency reported that Pyzh was suspected of sending information about the Moscow Metro and Metro-2, the Russian capital’s alleged secret underground transport network, to Ukraine. 

The authorities have neither confirmed nor denied the existence of Metro-2. 

Pyzh, a Russian-Ukrainian citizen, had uploaded hundreds of videos in which he explored abandoned industrial sites, cities, subways and bunkers to his roughly 800,000 YouTube subscribers before he was detained.

… we have a small favor to ask.

As you may have heard, The Moscow Times, an independent news source for over 30 years, has been unjustly branded as a "foreign agent" by the Russian government. This blatant attempt to silence our voice is a direct assault on the integrity of journalism and the values we hold dear.

We, the journalists of The Moscow Times, refuse to be silenced. Our commitment to providing accurate and unbiased reporting on Russia remains unshaken. But we need your help to continue our critical mission.

Your support, no matter how small, makes a world of difference. If you can, please support us monthly starting from just 2. It's quick to set up, and you can be confident that you're making a significant impact every month by supporting open, independent journalism. Thank you.

Continue

Read more