The Russian publication The Moscow Times, founded in 1992, has been classified by the Russian regime as an “undesirable organization” and has therefore been banned, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office said on Wednesday.
Published in 1992, shortly after the collapse of the USSR, this publication, distributed online in English and Russian, was already designated a “foreign agent” in November 2023, forcing most of its authors to leave the country.
The status of an “undesirable organization” now makes its employees subject to criminal prosecution in Russia.
In the recent past, there have been people who have been fined simply for sharing “links” or articles published by organizations classified as objectionable.
The Moscow Times has already confirmed on the Telegram social network, where it is followed by about 100,000 subscribers, that it has been declared an “undesirable organization.”
According to the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation, the work of The Moscow Times “is aimed at discrediting the decisions of the Russian leadership on issues of foreign and domestic policy.”
For the Russian regime, this media outlet “constantly interacts with foreign organizations such as Meduza, The Insider, or Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which have also already been deemed undesirable in Russia.”
Meduza and The Insider are independent Russian media outlets that were forced to leave the country for fear of reprisals from the Kremlin.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is a media outlet funded by the United States Congress.
“We will continue to work as before: independent journalism is a crime in Putin’s Russia,” responded Derk Sauer, founder of the Moscow Times, on the social network X.
Sauer, a Dutch citizen, moved the editorial team to Amsterdam after the Russian offensive in Ukraine began.
Many journalists who started working at The Moscow Times continued their careers in major international media outlets, including The New York Times or Agence France Presse.
Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich, who was detained in Russia in March 2023 and is currently on trial on espionage charges, is one of the journalists who joined the French news agency in 2020.
The Russian regime has continued to intensify repression against any dissent since its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Most opponents are in exile, jail or dead, like Alexei Navalny, who died in prison last February under circumstances that remain unclear.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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