JX Fund – European Fund for Journalism in Exile

The plight of independent journalists in Russia keeps getting worse. Apart from high-profile assassinations and arrests, there are obstacle to press freedom at every step.

Advocates estimate that hundreds of Russian journalists have fled into exile, where some continue to face transnational repression such as arrest warrants and jail terms in absentia. Those who remain are under heavy scrutiny as independent reporting hangs on by a thread.

A third of the victims of Russia’s “foreign agents” law are independent media, which makes them the primary target of this legislation — and highlights their systematic legal persecution. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has analysed the Ministry of Justice’s blacklists of “foreign agents” and “undesirable organisations” – which are used as tools of censorship – and condemns the stigmatisation of independent media as a fifth column.

When exiled Russian news website Meduza was hit with a flood of internet traffic in mid-April, it set off alarm bells among the staff as the deluge blocked publishing for more than four hours and briefly rendered the site inaccessible for some readers. It was the largest distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) attack in Meduza’s 10-year history.

Over the past decade, YouTube has become a vital platform for dissenting viewpoints as the Kremlin has clamped down on internet and media freedoms. For the exiled Russian opposition and independent media, losing it would mean losing a critical means of reaching millions inside Russia and countering the Kremlin’s propaganda.

After Russia invaded Ukraine, Riga became a hub for exiled Russian journalists. Among the first to arrive was TV Rain, a flagship of independent Russian media.

A Moscow court has sentenced exiled journalist Mikhail Zygar to eight-and-a-half years in prison in absentia for spreading so-called “fake” information about the Russian military’s actions in Ukraine, the independent Mediazona news website reported Tuesday.

Opponents of Russia’s war against Ukraine are discovering that their government ID cards have been canceled since they fled Russia. Deutsche Welle spoke to those affected.

TV Rain’s editor-in-chief Tikhon Dzyadko talks about stereotypes surrounding Russian journalists in exile and what marks them different from their colleagues in the Baltic states and Ukraine.

Moscow’s Dorogomilovsky District Court arrested in absentia TV Rain journalist and former IStories employee Ekaterina Fomina and IStories’ editor-in-chief Roman Anin. The journalists are accused of spreading so-called “fakes” about the Russian army with the motive of political hatred.

Russian exiled media and activists held a telethon  in support of the growing number of political prisoners inside Russia, raising tens of thousands of euros for those currently held behind bars.

One of the Belarusian media outlets that has survived in exile is Dev.by, a publisher dedicated to the IT industry in Belarus and the world, producing news, interviews, reports, and analytics. The organisation operates in spite of constant threats and lack of funding. Dev.by’s CEO and founder Artiom Kontsevoi shared with The Fix how they manage to operate in such unstable conditions.

Valera Ilinov, the founder of the leading independent media outlet covering the republic of Komi, sees his work as inherently political and decolonial. Last month, the 24-year-old founder of Komi’s flagship independent news outlet Komi Daily was fined for violating Russia’s censorship laws twice in one week.

In the investigative journalist Elena Kostyuchenko’s new book about Russia, resistance is carried out through small, discreet acts.

YouTube remains the only major US-based social media platform available in Russia. It’s become “indispensable” to everyday people, making a ban tricky. Journalists and dissidents are taking advantage.

“I consider this label repressive. But I can say for sure that we will continue to work, whatever they call us,” says Daria Poryadina, editor of the exile-Russian news outlet SOTA, that got declared an ‘undesirable organization’ by Russia’s Prosecutor General on May 16.

A Moscow Court has registered a misdemeanor case accusing Meduza co-founder Galina Timchenko of participating in an “undesirable organization,” Mediazona reported on May 27, citing online records.

Podcast radios are becoming a new media niche in the Russian media landscape challenged by war-reinforced oppression. The Fix talked with Maksim Kurnikov, the head of Ekho Online, which was the first in the Russian media landscape to launch such a service, and Polina Filippova, the producer of podcasts of Radio Sakharov, which has been operating for a year.