Laurent Claude Jean-Louis Vinatier

A consultant at the Henry Dunant Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, based in Geneva. The organisation was founded in 1999 and specialises in various mediation and peacebuilding missions during wars and armed conflicts.

He holds a PhD and cooperates with the Paris Institute of Political Studies; he is regarded as an expert on Russia and Central Asia. According to his LinkedIn profile, the political scientist specialises in Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan. He is fluent in Russian and regularly publishes in specialised academic journals.

Vinatier's work has focused, in particular, on events in Chechnya in the 1990s and early 2000s, as well as on the role of Islam in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia and the North Caucasus. He has published studies including "Islamism in Central Asia", as well as "Chechens: A Diaspora at War and Russia: The Chechen Deadlock".

On 6 June 2024, he was detained in Moscow on suspicion of collecting information in the field of military and military-technical activities of the Russian Federation without submitting the documents required for inclusion in the register of "foreign agents". On 7 June, he was formally charged and remanded in custody. On 21 June, he was added to the register of "foreign agents".

On 14 October 2024, Vinatier was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment in a general-regime penal colony.

In August 2025, it became known that criminal proceedings for espionage had been initiated against Vinatier. Details of this case are unknown.

On 8 January 2026, Vinatier was extradited to France as part of a prisoner exchange for Russian basketball player Daniil Kasatkin, whom the United States suspected of involvement in a hacking group.