Siberian writer accused of publishing articles critical of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on his news website has been charged with a crime, Russian media reported on Thursday.

Police in Khakassia, Russia, detained editor-in-chief of Novy Fokus Mikhail Afanasyev on Wednesday after he published an article on 11 riot police who reportedly refused to be sent to Ukraine.

Afanasyev was charged Thursday of broadcasting “deliberately false information” about the Russian military forces, an allegation that carries a potential 10-year prison term under a legislation introduced last month.

The accusations come at a time when independent media and anti-war protest are under unprecedented repression. Last month, the Russian parliament enacted a bill imposing a prison penalty of up to 15 years for publishing purposely “fake” news about the military.

Afanasyev has published various investigations into difficult subjects in Khakassia, like as organised crime and alleged abuses of power by local authorities.

The Russian government’s reaction to an explosion at Russia’s biggest hydropower plant in 2009 was the subject of a libel suit brought against him after he published reports criticising the response. And in 2016, he allegedly suffered death threats from a criminal gang operating in the Krasnoyarsk area of Siberia, after he exposed the group’s unlawful operations and possible links to local police.

Another journalist living in Siberia was also detained Wednesday on suspicion of violating Russia’s new legislation governing media coverage of the Ukraine crisis. Sergei Mikhailov, the creator of the weekly journal LIStok in the Altay region, was allegedly detained in pre-trial arrest for the publication’s alleged “calls for sanctions against Russia.”

Since March, LIStok’s website has been restricted for “supporting” activities critical of Moscow’s actions in Ukraine.

For their defence of the right of Russian youth to peaceful assembly in an internet video, four student journalists were sentenced to two years of “corrective labour” on Wednesday.

After being detained in April 2021 for posting a three-minute YouTube video saying it was illegal to expel and intimidate students for participating in rallies in support of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, former Doxa journalists Armen Aramyan, Natasha Tyshkevich, Alla Gutnikova and Volodya Metelkin were placed under house arrest for nearly a year.

A Moscow court on Tuesday claimed the film had promoted “the engagement of minors” in anti-Kremlin rallies.

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