Russian officials on Thursday continued their campaign to suppress press freedom, labeling independent news website Meduza an “undesirable organization” and effectively banning its content. This makes Meduza the latest journalistic outlet to fall victim to the Kremlin’s efforts to quash criticism.
The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office said Meduza’s activities posed “a threat to the foundations of the constitutional order and national security of the Russian Federation,” according to the Interfax news agency.
Over the past year, Moscow has stepped up attempts to control coverage of the war in Ukraine. In March, President Vladimir V. Putin signed a law criminalizing any public opposition to or independent reporting of the war.
Announcements about the new law urged some Russian independent news media to be closed before it enters into force. The Russian government has also blocked access to Facebook, the BBC and other news sources.
“The Russian authorities show that they will do everything they can to hinder the work of one of the leading independent Russian-language media outlets,” said Gulnoza Said, coordinator for Europe and Central Asia of the Committee for the Protection of Journalists, a press-monitoring organization. said in a statement.
Meduza, a popular Latvian channel that publishes news about Russia in both Russian and English, is often critical of the war in Ukraine. It posts on its website and to over a million Telegram subscribers in Russia and elsewhere.
The site was blocked in Russia last year at the start of the war, but the new designation of “undesirable” has wider implications. Now anyone in Russia who visits the site, “likes” any of its social media content, or shares a link to an article could face a fine or jail time.
Meduza editor-in-chief Ivan Kolpakov called the expulsion a “very bad event” but said that “we still waited for this to happen – and tried to prepare.”
The site plans to continue publishing, although its future plans are unclear.
Even before invading Ukraine, Moscow had labeled Meduza a “foreign agent,” wiping out its advertising revenue and forcing it to switch to a crowdfunding model to stay in business. As a foreign agent, Meduza had to add one more thing 24 Word Disclaimer about his new status on all his Russian-language content, including social media posts. Otherwise, the organization and its journalists could be fined or imprisoned.
In June, the independent business news site VTimes published shut down after Russia’s designation as a foreign agent hurt his business and made it harder for reporters to do their jobs. And in August, the government added TV Rain, long a leading independent broadcaster, and news site iStories to the list of foreign agents.
Other independent news sources have felt pressure from Moscow’s efforts to censor their reporting, even as they see a new urgency to provide unfiltered reporting.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a news station originally established as a CIA operation at the beginning of the Cold War, is an example. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February shook Radio Free Europe’s activities and highlighted the importance of its mission.
Within days of the invasion, the organization has ceased its activities in Russia. It had been under increasing pressure from Moscow for years and had already evacuated most of its staff to Prague and other offices before the war broke out.
Jamie Fly, the channel’s president and chief executive officer, said his organization has long been in firefighting mode.
“The challenge we are facing now, and the invasion of Ukraine, is just the latest iteration,” Mr. Fly said in an interview late last year. “We are increasingly under pressure when operating in these environments and in some cases we are being forced out of countries. That was always a challenge for us.”
Matina Stevis-Gridneff contributed reporting.
