Russia charges cyber-security

experts with treason

Two former cyber-security experts at Russia's FSB intelligence agency

and another at a software firm have been charged with treason, a
lawyer says.
Ex-FSB men Sergei Mikhailov and Dmitry Dokuchayev, and an executive at the
anti-virus software firm Kaspersky, Ruslan Stoyanov, are accused of working for
US interests.
Some reports suggested the arrests could be linked to claims of Russian
hacking during the US election.
The Kremlin denied the claim.

The names of those charged were given by Ivan Pavlov, a lawyer acting for one
of the men.
Russian media reports suggest Mr Mikhailov, who was formerly deputy head of
the FSB's cyber-security department, was detained in dramatic style and led
out of a meeting with a bag over his head.
As with all treason cases, details of these accusations have not been made
public.
But the BBC's Sarah Rainsford in Moscow says claims from anonymous sources
continue to circulate around the Russian capital, including one that links the
arrests to a Russian server-renting firm accused of involvement in the hacking
of voting systems in two US states.
President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the arrests were not
related to the hacking, which Russia denies involvement in.
Other claims suggest that the men had links to a hacking group known as
Shaltai Boltai (Humpty Dumpty), best known for digging dirt on senior Russian
political figures and making it public.