The Moscow branch of Russia's Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case against Yekaterina Kotrikadze, a presenter at the independent television channel TV Rain, under part 2 of Article 330.1 of the Criminal Code, which covers repeated evasion of duties imposed by the country's 'foreign agent' legislation. Investigators allege the journalist failed to fulfill these obligations after being added to the Justice Ministry's register of 'foreign agents'. They plan to charge her in absentia 'in the near future'.
The Justice Ministry designated Kotrikadze a 'foreign agent' in October 2022. In 2025, the Investigative Committee had already announced a criminal case against Kotrikadze, TV Rain editor-in-chief Tikhon Dzyadko, and presenter Valeriya Ratnikova over alleged 'fakes' about the Russian military. That press release also mentioned the 'foreign agent' article, but Kotrikadze said it was unclear whether it applied to her. 'The ham-fisted idiots at the Investigative Committee confused my statuses and in some press releases wrote about a criminal case over foreign-agent status. It turns out there were only the "fakes", for which they gave 8 years in a penal colony,' Kotrikadze said of the new statement.
In February, a Moscow court sentenced Kotrikadze in absentia to eight years in a penal colony over the 'military fakes' case. The charges stemmed from her Telegram posts on April 4, 2022, in which she described the killings of civilians in Bucha and urged people to collect evidence of war crimes, as well as her comments about victims of a missile strike on Odesa and a post quoting Human Rights Watch's director that aired on TV Rain.
Kotrikadze's husband, TV Rain editor-in-chief Tikhon Dzyadko, and the channel's journalists Anna Mongait and Valeriya Ratnikova have also received sentences under the 'military fakes' article.