Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has been languishing in a Russian prison more than a year, charged with espionage. Alsu Kurmasheva, who was working for US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has also been detained in Russia, accused of being a “foreign agent.” This past week, two Russian journalists were imprisoned in Russia, charged with “extremism” for working for the late Alexey Navalny’s anti-corruption group. Both journalists—Konstantin Gabov and Sergey Karelin—deny the charges. Sergei Mingazov, a journalist for the Russian edition of Forbes, last week also was detained on suspicion of spreading “fake news” about the Russian army.
My background is in journalism. When I shipped off to Army basic training in August 1994, I knew that after boot camp I would be attending the Defense Information School’s Basic Broadcaster Course, where I would be taught how to write, how to conduct myself on the air, and how to edit video and audio. After I left the Army, I worked as a news anchor for a local radio station, and in 2005, I attended the Defense Information School again to get my print journalism and public affairs certification.
I deployed with a National Guard military police unit to Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina to help the unit tell their story. I remember the vast amount of misinformation flying around about the National Guard, about corruption, and about rescue efforts, and I swore to tell the unit’s story honestly, faithfully, and honorably. Those guys didn’t trust us public affairs types—they had been deployed to Iraq and were there during the Abu Ghraib fiasco and the subsequent reporting that unfortunately painted all US Soldiers as corrupt and sadistic. But we earned their trust eventually, also by pitching in during missions, when we weren’t covering them.
As a former journalist, I believe the media is critical to the functioning of a stable, just, and transparent society. The media can expose corruption. It can cover events on the ground during military missions. Reports can uncover war crimes and fan away the fog of war just a bit to give audiences insights into what is happening on the battlefield. Journalists keep the general public informed about issues that are interesting and vital to keeping those in power accountable to the people.
And that’s why Russia’s war on journalism is particularly illuminating.
Note: I’m not getting into the political aspects of what the media is, “fake news,” biased reporting, mis- and disinformation, etc. That’s not what this article is about.
Numerous journalists have been detained on spurious charges of speaking ill about the Russian army, espionage, violating Russia’s foreign agent law, etc. The Russian foreign agent law says that essentially any person or entity, regardless of nationality or location, who even expresses negative opinions about Russian policies or the conduct of its politicians could be designated as a foreign agent, as long as the authorities claim they are under “foreign influence.” And if they are designated as foreign agents, you can forget about them living their lives or working as free people in Mother Russia! They will be excluded from key aspects of civic life and will become undesirables, treated like traitors and spies.
And if you think they just target western journalists, you’d be sadly mistaken.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF)—an international nonprofit and NGO that works to safeguard freedom of information—noted in late March that six journalists were arrested in the span of just a few hours in what was deemed a crackdown on independent journalism.
Five of the journalists were arrested in Moscow while the sixth was arrested in Ufa, a city 1.300 km east of Moscow. One of the journalists, Antonina Favorskaya, who works for the independent Russian media outlet SOTAvision, was re-arrested as she was being released in Moscow after ten days in detention on a charge of “disobeying the police.” She is now accused of “extremist activities” because of her coverage of opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s death, and previously his work.
Two of her colleagues who had come to greet her, Alexandra Astakhova and Anastasia Musatova, were also detained by the police and were interrogated as “witnesses” before finally being released. The police also searched their homes, seizing equipment.
SOTAvision reporter Ekaterina Anikievich was arrested together with Konstantin Zharov, who works for the independent media outlet RusNews, as they were covering a raid on Favorskaya’s home. They were also eventually released, but Zharov was beaten by police, threatened with sexual violence and taken to a hospital.
These journalists are lucky to be alive. Many are murdered, and their killers either were never found or never faced real consequences. The media recently reported on the killer of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was known for her reporting on political and social events in Russia, and in particular, the Second Chechen War. Politkovskaya was murdered in 2006 on Russian president Putin’s birthday, purely coincidentally, I’m sure. *rolls eyes*
Former police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2014 for organizing the Politkovskaya’s murder. But guess what! Khadzhikurbanov was issued a pardon after he fought in Ukraine.
Further, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg in 2018 found that, while the authorities had found and convicted those directly responsible for the contract murder, they had “failed to take adequate investigatory steps to find the person or persons who had commissioned the murder.”
Russia’s war on journalism continues today. According to RSF, Russia hunts down journalists in Ukraine, threatens them, and forces them to disseminate Kremlin propaganda.
“Mass graves in the courtyards of buildings, neighbours burying their neighbours, destruction and looting... Despite the risk of being killed at any moment, I observed, photographed and filmed for three weeks, sometimes running under fire with my 6-year-old son on a scooter by my side.” This is how Yuliia Harkusha, 42, described being hunted in Mariupol, with no Internet connection but wanting at all costs to document the Russian army’s crimes and the constant horrors in the besieged city, although her brilliant career and professional ties meant she was high on the Russian occupiers’ list of targets.
Marina Ovsyannikova in the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine made headlines when she held up a sign that read, “Don't believe the propaganda; they’re lying to you here” during a news broadcast at Russian state-run Channel One TV station and screamed, “Stop the war, no to war!” In July 2022, Ovsyannikova staged a protest near the Kremlin, holding a sign that said, “Putin is a killer. His soldiers are fascists. 352 children have been killed. How many more children need to die for you to stop?”
For her acts of defiance, Ovsyannikova in early October 2023 was sentenced in absentia to 8 1/2 years in prison for protesting Russia’s war in Ukraine. Luckily, she escaped house arrest and fled Russia with her daughter.
And journalists are not just being targeted on the battlefield and detained and murdered in Russia. It is also happening abroad. German prosecutors in August 2023, confirmed they were investigating the attempted murder of Berlin-based Russian journalist Elena Kostyuchenko, who was one of three Russian exile journalists who experienced symptoms consistent with poisoning—extreme disorientation, abdominal pain, and swollen extremities. Kostyuchenko was a foreign correspondent who exposed Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
So why is Russia so desperately trying to silence journalists? If Russian troops are really doing nothing wrong in Ukraine, one would think Russia would be happy to open the battlefield to those willing to report the truth. But as we all know, Russia’s hands are filthy. Rapes, including of the elderly and small children, mass murders, torture of civilians, mass looting, kidnapping, and other crimes have been covered by international journalists in spite of Russian threats and attempts to silence the truth.
In the case of Gershkovich and Kurmasheva, I believe Moscow is planning to use them as bargaining chips to effect the release of Vadim Krasikov, who in 2021 was sentenced to life in prison for murdering an exiled Chechen-Georgian dissident in a Berlin park in broad daylight. Russia claims that even the identity of Krasikov was wrong.
Krasikov, his lawyers, and until now the Russian state have contested his guilt and even identity, saying he is not the Russian state hitman prosecutors allege but Vadim Sokolov, a Russian tourist visiting Berlin on a sunny August day.
Interesting that Russia does not seem to care about the nearly half a million troops it has sent into a meat grinder in Ukraine to die, but one alleged “tourist” is so critical, they are detaining journalists merely doing their jobs—to the outrage of the entire world—holding them in Russian prisons, and demanding an exchange.
And if the Kremlin can detain even more western journalists, I have no doubt they will, charging them with all sorts of crimes from espionage to maligning the Russian army. Russia wants Krasikov returned, and it seems to be willing to go to great lengths to get him back.
But the scores of other reporters who have been captured, tortured, threatened, tried in absentia, and murdered are almost certainly an effort to drop a new iron curtain on Russia’s malign activities. The less truthful reporting there is about Russia’s war crimes and the illegal invasion and theft of Ukrainian territory, the more Russia’s messaging will dominate, and the more audiences will absorb Russia’s narrative. There simply will not be anything else to counter the Russian propaganda.
That’s why so many journalists risk everything to report the truth.
At a time when confidence in mainstream media is declining, honest, objective journalism is more critical than ever. And when you see reporters targeted for shining a spotlight on malign activities of those in power, that’s when you know their work is having an effect.
A final note: although I encourage you to never take any report at face value and find independent corroboration when possible, I would also urge you never to discount a report merely because it appeared on CNN or on Fox News. Both news outlets have been accused of being far left and far right respectively, and many, who want to exist in political echo chambers only drinking from a firehose of news that comes from outlets with whom they agree, will refuse to read reports just because they happen to have been aired on a particular channel.
Read each report. Read it critically. Analyze it with a keen eye, and find corroboration from independent sources when possible.
Know that many of these journalists risk life and limb and report on events around the globe with heart, intelligence, and courage.
What are you talking about? Not only did Tucker Carlson get to interview Putin, he also got the grand tour of Moscow’s exemplary grocery stores, subway system, and fast food joints! /sarc, of course).
Well said, and it is ALWAYS about 'controlling the narrative'... Russia has always attempted that, and were pretty successful prior to the Internet/free access to news by those outside Pravda and the MSM reporters they had 'power' over.