Siberian journalist gets arrested in Russia over a Ukraine report

Moscow: A Siberian news editor was arrested on Friday for claiming 11 riot police officers refused to join Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine.

Since President Vladimir Putin dispatched troops to Ukraine on February 24, authorities have stepped up efforts to muzzle critics.

The Investigative Committee said the main editor of a news website in Khakassia, Siberia, had been arrested for spreading “deliberately false information.”

The journalist faces up to ten years in prison if convicted.

His flat was raided earlier this week, the Investigative Committee stated.

The Investigative Committee in Khakassia did not name the journalist, but it is believed he is Mikhail Afanasyev, editor of “Novyi Fokus,” a local news website.

Afanasyev alleged in early April that officials pressed 11 OMON riot police officers to go to Ukraine.

The story by Afanasyev was extensively shared on social media, and on Friday, Russia’s media regulator disabled The Moscow Times’ Russian-language website after it quoted it in an article.

Afanasyev, 45, has vowed he will not leave Russia.

“I am not going to flee the country, I am stubborn and want to put up a fight,” he told AFP in early April.

Afanasyev is a renowned editor in Khakassia. His independent reporting has been the subject of libel litigation for years.

Russian authorities have sentenced people to up to 15 years in jail for distributing false information about the Russian military.

Since the beginning of the Russian military incursion in Ukraine, independent media outlets have been closed or halted.

Reporters Without Borders urged Russia to end “this witchhunt”.

“After dispatching the national independent press, the Russian authorities are now targeting critical local media outlets by means of the new laws establishing war censorship,” the watchdog stated.

Sergei Mikhailov, the head editor of Listok, a small opposition newspaper in Altai, Siberia, was arrested earlier this week for publishing “false information” regarding Russian forces in Ukraine.

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