A Russian presidential aide’s assistant who was arrested last week allegedly passed sensitive details abroad from security meetings chaired by President Vladimir Putin, the Znak.com news website has reported.
Alexander Vorobyov, an assistant to Nikolai Tsukanov, Putin’s envoy to the Urals Federal District, was detained on charges of state treason on Thursday. Tsukanov is listed as a member of the Russian Security Council, a constitutional advisory body that prepares decisions on wide-ranging security issues.
Vorobyov was detained because he had “transmitted information from Russian Security Council meetings abroad,” Znak.com reported on Tuesday, citing two unnamed sources.
“He had been cultivated for several years, during which he passed on secret information,” one of the sources was quoted as saying.
One of the outlet’s sources suggested that Vorobyov — who did not have access to classified information — may have used his personal connections with Tsukanov to gain access.
Unconfirmed reports citing law enforcement sources said authorities had seized a recording device and a Polish passport from Vorobyov, who hails from Russia’s western exclave of Kaliningrad along Poland’s border.
Tsukanov is scheduled to accompany Putin on a trip to the Sverdlovsk region’s administrative center of Yekaterinburg later on Tuesday.
That’s when the presidential envoy allegedly plans to officially dismiss Vorobyov, local media reported, citing unnamed sources in his office.
