High treason

Russian journalists in shock as FSB hunts enemy within

As Ivan Safronov was led into court, hands cuffed and head pushed down by two masked guards, he managed just one sentence. "I'm not guilty," he told a crowd of supporters packed into the corridor.

The arrest of the former military correspondent has shocked fellow Russian journalists, who describe the claim by the FSB security service that he handed state secrets to Czech Intelligence as "absurd".

The Kremlin has praised the '"high quality" work of Russian counter-intelligence but none of the evidence of Ivan Safronov's "betrayal" has been made public.

So some fear his arrest is a show of force by the FSB amid a surge in detentions for treason and espionage so great it's prompted talk of "spy mania".

'Putin doesn't care what anyone thinks'

"My first thought was that I'd gone back two decades in a time machine," says Grigory Pasko, recalling his own prosecution in 1997 - the last time a Russian journalist was charged with treason.

Mr Pasko was also a military correspondent and he'd written extensively about environmental violations by the Russian navy.