Russian woman charged in US for suspected ties to Russian security services

The US Department of Justice has charged a Russian woman living in New York over her suspected ties to the Russian security services, according to a court affidavit citing the testimony of an FBI agent that was published on Monday.

Nomma Zarubina, 34, was charged with “knowingly and willfully” making false statements during two interviews with FBI agents in April 2021 and September 2023, in which she denied having been in contact with the Russian intelligence services. 

The FBI said it had later discovered that Zarubina had been in regular communication with a Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officer based in the Siberian city of Tomsk, and that she had agreed to perform tasks in the US on behalf of the agency.

If found guilty, Zarubina, who was released on a $25,000 bail on 21 November and forced to surrender her travel documents, faces up to five years in prison, according to lawyer Igor Slabykh who published the affidavit, who added that she had not been charged with espionage. 

Zarubina, who was born in Tomsk in 1990 and emigrated to the United States as an adult after graduating from the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, was recruited by the FSB in 2020 after meeting one of its officers and being assigned the codename “Alyssa”, according to the FBI.

She subsequently worked for the FSB until at least 2022, the bureau said, identifying “potentially helpful” contacts within the US, such as journalists and think tank staff, whom the FSB would invite to Russia for potential recruitment.

The FBI also claimed Zarubina had worked for and shared a close personal relationship with Yelena Branson, a dual Russian-US citizen who allegedly received funding from the Russian government to run the Russian Centre New York, which, according to prosecutors “spread Russian propaganda”. Branson, who fled the US for Russia in 2020, was charged with acting as a spy in the US in March 2022 and remains at large.

Zarubina was seen at several events organised by the Russian America for Democracy in Russia, a US-based NGO that seeks to unite the anti-war and anti-Kremlin members of the Russian diaspora, and had met a number of Russian opposition figures, the organisation wrote on Telegram. She also participated in events of the Free Nations of Post-Russia Forum, which advocates for Russia’s disintegration and decolonisation.

Leonid Volkov, an ally of late Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, wrote on Telegram on Tuesday that Zarubina had attended a public talk he gave in Washington in January 2023 and had taken a picture with him.

“She was on her phone the whole meeting and didn’t show any interest in what I was saying. But as soon as the meeting was over, she was the first to jump up to me and ask for a selfie,” Volkov said.

In an interview with Sibir.Realii, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Siberian affiliate, on Tuesday, Zarubina said she had been approached by the Russian security services, but “had never carried out any tasks” for the FSB. She also claimed that she voluntarily reported those contacts to the FBI in April 2021, and had been in touch with the US security services since then. 

“I know those people who arrested me, I’ve known them for four years. I thought we had a good relationship and that I was helping them,” Zarubina said, adding that she now feared repercussions from the FSB who she said had not been aware of her communications with the FBI. 

Zarubina also told Sibir.Realii that she had opposed the Russian invasion of Ukraine, although Russian independent media outlet Agentstvo noted that Zarubina’s VK page had signalled her support for the Russian government over the years, including a picture she posted of herself in 2017 wearing a “KGB summer camp” T-shirt with a Russian flag painted on her face.