After the special military operation began in Ukraine, Roskomnadzor (the Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications) blocked almost all independent Russian-language media. Some of them have closed, many journalists have left Russia. The 7x7 Online Newspaper asked the editors-in-chief of four media outlets to say how they had faced the blocking and what their plans were.
Dmitry Kolezev, Editor-in-Chief of Republic*:
“Russian journalism has found itself in the worst situation since 1991. Someday the dark times will pass and Russian journalism will be revived and will be even stronger than before thanks to all of this.”
Viktor Muchnik, Editor-in-Chief of the TV2 News Agency, Tomsk:
“I have been ready for blocking since 2015 [the TV2 TV Company stopped working then due to pressure from the authorities]. Honest journalists who work according to professional rules will find it increasingly difficult to work in Russia. And I am afraid that it will be almost impossible from some point.”
Sergei Smirnov*, Editor-in-Chief of Mediazona*:
“Personally, I felt nothing after the news about us being blocked. We expected that. It has become absolutely not scary, with so many media and social networks being blocked. I hope that Roskomnadzor and its employees soon realize how useless and unnecessary they are to Russia. We continue working and are in a good mood. There is no reason to believe that this blocking can really bother us.”
Denis Kamalyagin*, Editor-in-Chief of Pskovaskaya Gubernia (‘Pskov province’):
“After the police ‘raided’ the newspaper's editorial office, we restored the phones [security forces seized all the equipment during the search]. And immediately after that, we found out that the site had been blocked. We expected that this could happen, since we used the word ‘***’ in the articles on the website [the Russian authorities demand using ‘special military operation’]. A new stage is coming for Russian journalism. It depends on us what it will be.”