Igor Sutyagin Igor Vyacheslavovich Sutyagin ( Russian : Игорь Сутягин ; born 17 January 1965 ) is a Russia n arms control and nuclear weapon s specialist and an alleged spy for the Defense Intelligence Agency . In 1998 he became the head of the subdivision for Military - Technical and Military - Economic Policy at the Institute for US and Canadian Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow , where he worked before he was arrested for treason , although he supposedly did not have access to classified documentation as a civilian researcher . Background and trial . With a degree in physics as well as history , Sutyagin worked on topics relating to U . S . and Russian nuclear weapon s development , deployment and control and he is a co - author of a well - respected book on the Russian strategic nuclear forces . In October 1999 , the Russian Federal Security Service detained Sutyagin and brought against him charges of espionage . They alleged that Sutyagin passed classified information to a London - based firm , Alternative Futures . Sutyagin acknowledged working with the company , but he said that all information about atomic submarines he disclosed was based on material in the open literature , and without a security clearance he never had access to classified sources . In 2004 , after a trial , a jury in Moscow unanimously found Sutyagin guilty in espionage . The jury found it proven that Sutyagin disclosed a secret information to the DIA officers Shaun Kidd and Nadya Lokk , and was paid for this . The court sentenced him to 15 years of imprisonment . In December 2005 Sutyagin was transferred to a penal colony in Kholmogory near Arkhangelsk . Reactions . Russian journalist Yulia Latynina argued that although communications of Sutyagin with foreign spy agencies have never been proven , he passed open source information to suspicious foreigners , which must be punished . She said that even providing information about temperature in Moscow to foreign intelligence would represent a high treason . In reply , lawyer Boris Kuznetsov , who represented Sutyagin previously , hinted that the Russian secret service FSB benefited from her program in Echo of Moscow , Sutyagin ' s case was listed as a political prisoner by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International . Human Rights Watch stated that " the FSB showed little respect for Sutiagin ’ s right to a fair trial : the charges against him were vaguely worded ; his assertion that he only used open sources were never verified ; investigators based the charges on secret decrees that Sutiagin was not allowed to see ; the FSB violated numerous rules of criminal procedure ; and officials publicly denounced Sutiagin as a spy prior to and during his trial . Human rights activists argued that he had no access to secrets and had been working openly with academics . US - Russia spy swap . On 9 July 2010 , Sutyagin was swapped by Russia for the release of 10 people arrested in the United States of spying for Russia . He had always maintained his innocence but agreed to sign an admission of guilt as part of the deal . Sutyagin reports that he had been asked to sign a pardon request falsely admitting guilt as early as 2005 . The US State Department does not consider Sutyagin to be a spy . Sutyagin hopes to rejoin his wife Irina Manannikova and daughters Oksana and Anastasiya . In 2011 , ECtHR has found violations of Articles 5 and 6 of ECHR by Russian authorities in Sutyagin ' s case .