On Thursday October 26, the Stockholm court acquitted a Russian-Swedish businessman accused of being a Russian agent, considering that he had transmitted Western technologies to Russia but without this constituting espionage. The prosecution had requested five years in prison against Sergei Skvortsov, who moved to Sweden with his wife in the 1990s and managed import-export companies.
During the trial, the prosecution considered that he had served as a “procurement agent” for Western technologies normally prohibited from being transferred to the Russian military system. The two countries targeted by these acquisitions were Sweden and the United States, according to the prosecution.
Mr. Skvortsov’s activities “were a platform for acquiring technology from Western companies, and this advanced technology was acquired and delivered to the Russian state by circumventing export regulations and sanctions.” , said the court in a press release.
But “the main question in this case is whether the activities of the accused could have led to espionage,” noted Judge Jakob Hedenmo in a press release. For this, “the activity must have aimed to obtain sensitive information of high security value concerning Sweden and the United States in order to commit an act of espionage”. However, the prosecution “was not able to prove” that this was his intention, he added.
“A serious risk to national interests”
Arrested and placed in detention in November 2022, the man was released on October 9, at the end of his trial, the court considering that there was “no longer reason” to keep him in detention. His trial for “illegal intelligence activities” took place largely behind closed doors in September.
According to experts cited by Swedish media, the technologies transferred could have been used in particular for research into nuclear weapons. “Russia needs technology. There is a Russian supply system and this system is managed by the intelligence services. Skvortsov and his two companies are part of this system,” prosecutor Henrik Olin said during the trial. According to him, the accused “poses a serious risk to national security interests, both in Sweden and in the United States”, targeted by technology transfers for around ten years.
“You only have to look at the battlefield in Ukraine to see that the Russian military-industrial complex needs this,” the prosecutor told Agence France-Presse before the trial.
No belonging to the Russian system
Mr. Skvortsov claimed to be a legitimate businessman who sought permission to export his products. These authorizations were intended to “provide the appearance of legitimacy,” but he withheld information about the exported material, provided false end-user information, and used false names of business partners, according to the prosecutor.
The businessman’s lawyer, Ulrika Borg, requested her client’s release, ruling that the investigation had not proven that the Russo-Swede belonged to the Russian system. According to the prosecutor, the technologies exported came mainly from the United States.
In 2016, American justice had arrested and tried, mainly in New York, people who had supplied the Russian military system with electronic devices, he recalled. “The analysis of the American authorities is that the accused took over from them,” Mr. Olin said before the trial. An FBI agent testified behind closed doors during the trial, alongside Swedish intelligence officials.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson ruled in July that his country was facing “the most serious security situation since the Second World War.” He estimated on Tuesday that Russia constituted one of these threats, recalling that Moscow took a dim view of Sweden’s request for membership in NATO and its support for Ukraine.
