The investigator named the charge over the phone but declined to give details, according to Prokopyeva, who reported the search on Facebook. He said officers of the Investigative Committee were looking in the flat for "symbols of organizations banned in Russia."
Prokopyeva herself is abroad. The case against her in absentia became known in summer 2024, when the journalist was added to the Interior Ministry's wanted list. The entry said the search was tied to a criminal case but did not specify the article.
Speaking to Mediazona at the time, Prokopyeva suggested the case could concern Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code. She had earlier been fined under a similar administrative article (20.3.3 of the Administrative Code). A ruling that has entered into force under such a protocol allows a criminal case to be opened within a year for a repeat offense.
In September 2023 Prokopyeva was fined 35,000 rubles under a protocol on "discrediting" the army over an interview with historian Vasily Zharkov, Radio Liberty reports. The authorities argued that through it the journalist "exerted a psychological influence on readers."
In April 2026 she was fined 30,000 rubles under the article on failure to fulfill the duties of a "foreign agent," according to Radio Liberty and Current Time. Prokopyeva was added to the "foreign agents" register in June 2023.
In 2020 the journalist was sentenced to a 500,000-ruble fine in a case of justifying terrorism (Part 2 of Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code). The case stemmed from a November 2018 broadcast: in the program "Minutka prosveshcheniya" on Ekho Moskvy in Pskov, discussing the act of Mikhail Zhlobitsky, who blew himself up in the building of the Federal Security Service (FSB) directorate, Prokopyeva suggested the state itself was pushing young people toward radical actions. The prosecution sought six years in a penal colony and a four-year ban on journalistic activity.
In 2026 the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the Russian article on justifying terrorism was too broad in its interpretation and awarded Prokopyeva 7,500 euros in compensation, Radio Liberty reports.
In March 2022, after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, police officers broke down the door of the journalist's country house, threw her to the floor and then took her for questioning in a case of slander against Pskov Region Governor Maxim Vedernikov (Article 128.1 of the Criminal Code). Prokopyeva was ultimately released as a witness, after which she left Russia.