Russia Election Hack? Moscow Charges Kaspersky Lab Cybersecurity Expert And FSB Officers With Treason For 'Cooperating' With US

Russian authorities Wednesday charged an employee of the cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab and two officers in the Federal Security Service (FSB) with committing treason in the interest of the United States.

The three people have been identified as Ruslan Stoyanov, head of Kaspersky's computer incidents investigation team; and Sergei Mikhailov and Dmitry Dokuchayev, who worked for the FSB's Information Security Centre.

Ivan Pavlov, a lawyer representing one of the three, did not specify who he was representing, but said Stoyanov was not his client. "My client, along with the others, has been charged with state treason and cooperating with U.S. intelligence services," Pavlov told Reuters.

Stoyanov's cybersecurity team at Kaspersky had been cooperating with the FSB since 2013 in analyzing cybercrime cases and offering expertise in criminal cases concerning cybersecurity. Kaspersky Lab officials confirmed Stoyanov's arrest but said the charges were filed against him even before he joined the company in 2012.

Mikhailov was the leader of a covert hacking group known by the name "Humpty Dumpty" that "cooperated with the Ukrainian SBU (security service), which is the same as working for the CIA; he worked with them, which is obviously treason," Sergei Markov, Kremlin adviser and parliamentarian, told the Daily Beast. Mikhailov was arrested in late December during a meeting by his own FSB colleagues "with a bag over his head," Markov added.

Speculations had come up regarding the arrests and it was linked to the alleged Russian hacking of last year's U.S. election. U.S. intelligence officials accused Russian hackers of sabotaging the elections in favor of Donald Trump, though Moscow denied all the allegations.

A Kremlin spokesman said Russian President Vladimir Putin was aware of media reports about the arrests and the details of the treason charges, but did not say if Putin looked into the matter.