Journalism already nearly impossible, but Russia keeps tightening the thumbscrews

• Christian Paauwe

  Foreign publisher

Journalist Olga Mutovina is watching a pro-war demonstration in Irkutsk with a colleague when she is arrested. It is September 23, a few days after Putin’s ‘partial mobilisation’ began. “We were surrounded by about ten officers. We were handcuffed, there was screaming,” Moetovina told NOS by telephone. “It all felt very menacing.”

According to police, they posted anti-war leaflets during the demonstration – and ‘discrediting’ the military has been banned since the invasion. Mutovina and her colleague are questioned at the police station but refuse to confess. After the insistence of the lawyers, they are released three hours later. Fearing what awaits them, Mutovina and her colleague flee Russia the next day.

Mutovina’s story is typical of the extensive repression in Russia after the invasion. Demonstrating is virtually impossible, life is made difficult for activists, and journalists can be fined for reporting on the war in Ukraine. In a week, the thumbscrews will be further tightened with new legislation.

Tighter restrictions on foreign journalists covering Russia and the war in Ukraine will come into force on 1 December. On a list 61 points are registered which should not be discussed – such as, for example, the training of mobilized men and army morale.

The rules for “foreign agents” will also apply to anyone under “foreign influence.” It’s unclear what that will basically mean. Russia has used the “foreign agent” label in recent years to silence critics – for example, it has to contend with stringent financial oversight. In addition, the Ministry of Justice will publish the personal data of “foreign agents” on a website.

It is because of arbitrariness that Mutovina thinks he cannot go back for the moment. Since the beginning of the war, you have bluntly reported on the war in Ukraine on the Lyudi Baikala news site. They have published articles on civilian casualties in Kharkiv and men dying in Ukraine. He’s talked about it before too with the NO. In April, their website was already blocked by Russian media regulator Rozkomnadzor: Russians need a VPN to read their work.

A few days after the arrest, an agent of the Russian secret services came to the newsroom with questions about the journalists. Mutovina and her colleague had already fled. Officers also knocked on their door. “We had been warned for some time that the authorities had drawn attention to us. We didn’t really believe it before. But now it has become clear that it wasn’t made up.”

Mutovina reports from Armenia on what is happening in Russia, such as hundreds of refugee journalists continuing their work abroad. Though she would like to go back, lawyers tell her she’s not sure. “In the end you don’t know what they will use against you.” A journalist from Yakutia was recently fined, Mutovina says, because he spoke about the ‘front’ in a television interview. This is not allowed, the court said, because there is no war in Ukraine, but a “special military operation”.

With next week’s crackdown, the crackdown won’t be radically different, predicts the journalist. “In fact, you are not allowed to write anything about the war,” Mutovina says. “Those in power freely interpret current legislation when it is in their best interests.”