In April 2022, Sergey Mikhaylov was detained in Lyubertsy, outside Moscow, and taken through Novosibirsk to Gorno-Altaysk. That is where he published the newspaper Listok. The case against him rested on an article on the paper’s website about the killing of civilians in Bucha and nine posts on its Telegram channel about a destroyed hospital and drama theater in Mariupol and about civilian deaths.

By then, Listok’s editor-in-chief, Viktor Rau, had left Russia. He said publicly that he was the one who had posted the material. The court went ahead anyway. On Aug. 30, 2024, Mikhaylov was sentenced to eight years in a penal colony. The court convicted him of spreading “fake news” about the military — information the authorities deem false about the armed forces — “motivated by political hatred” and barred him from journalism for four years (Mediazona (in Russian), Meduza (in Russian)). The Committee to Protect Journalists called for his immediate release (CPJ (in Russian)). More on his case: Sergey Mikhaylov: Eight Years in Prison for Reporting on Bucha and Mariupol.

Mikhaylov’s case follows a pattern seen in dozens of others. Russia does not stop at the author of a story or the well-known editor of a Moscow outlet. It goes after the people tied to an independent newsroom: publishers, founders, editors, correspondents. A blocked website, a closed newspaper or a move abroad does not end the pursuit.

Russia held 31 journalists in custody or in prison in November 2026, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists — “the highest number since CPJ began keeping records” (CPJ).

What we did

FACTUM.press took six regional newsrooms whose websites were blocked in March 2022 and used open sources to trace what happened to them through November 2026. They are It’s My City in Yekaterinburg, Fortanga in Ingushetia, Dovod in Vladimir, 7x7 in Komi, TV2 in Tomsk and Taiga.info in Novosibirsk.

In five of the six, a founder, editor-in-chief or former head later faced a criminal case, was put on a wanted list or was sentenced in absentia, without being present in court. The sixth outlet was liquidated. We chose these six ourselves because verifiable information about them exists. They cannot show what share of all blocked media faces such cases. What they do show is how persecution unfolds once a website goes dark.

Six newsrooms after the block

Yekaterinburg, It’s My City. The site was blocked in March 2022. Later, Roskomnadzor, Russia’s media regulator, went to court to annul the outlet’s media registration, claiming it had not published for more than a year because the site was inaccessible. The move followed a letter from Igor Nikolaev, head of the Sverdlovsk regional directorate of the Federal Security Service, or FSB; the outlet’s founder, Dmitry Kolezev, published its text. In July 2024, a court granted the claim, and on Oct. 29 the regional court upheld the ruling. Kolezev was sentenced in absentia to seven and a half years on Aug. 6, 2024 (Mediazona (in Russian), Ekho (in Russian), CPJ). On Aug. 26, 2026, he received another eight months in prison, again in absentia, in a case over failing to meet the obligations of a “foreign agent,” a government label that comes with mandatory disclaimers and reporting (Mediazona (in Russian)).

Ingushetia, Fortanga. Isabella Yevloyeva (profile in Russian) started the site in 2018, while on maternity leave, to cover protests in the republic. She left Russia in 2019. The site was blocked in March 2022, and between March and July at least two criminal cases over “fake news” were opened against Yevloyeva; Mediazona reports three, the third based on a report by the republic’s FSB directorate (Mediazona (in Russian), Novaya Gazeta Europe (in Russian)).

Vladimir, Dovod. Editor-in-chief Ilya Kosygin (profile in Russian) left in the summer of 2021. The site was blocked in March 2022 (Mediazona (in Russian)). In 2023, the outlet and its editor were designated “foreign agents,” and in 2024 they were fined twice for failing to file reports. In November 2025, Mediazona found Kosygin in the Interior Ministry’s criminal wanted database; no case against him had been reported before (Mediazona (in Russian)).

Komi, 7x7. On July 8, 2025, the FSB announced a treason case against Pavel Andreyev, a co-founder of 7x7 and director of the Revolt Center. Searches and interrogations took place in at least 12 regions and reached journalists in Karelia and Kaliningrad. According to Mediazona, citing the outlet Ostorozhno, Novosti, investigators pointed among other things to European grants for 7x7’s work and linked Andreyev to an organization that works with a man who shares his full name (The Insider (in Russian), Mediazona (in Russian)).

Tomsk, TV2. The newsroom shut down right after the block. That did not protect its former editor-in-chief, Viktor Muchnik (profile in Russian). In 2024, he was designated a “foreign agent.” In 2025, he was fined three times, once over an interview about Siberia; that fine was for taking part in the activities of an “undesirable organization,” a designation that bans a group from Russia and makes any involvement with it an offense. On May 14, 2026, the Interior Ministry put him on its wanted list (Mediazona (in Russian)).

Novosibirsk, Taiga.info. The outlet took down a story about the war at Roskomnadzor’s demand and stayed blocked anyway. In 2023, it was designated a “foreign agent” (Meduza (in Russian)). By August 2024, its legal entity had been liquidated and it had stopped working (The Insider (in Russian), Mediazona (in Russian)).

In three of the six cases, documents show regional FSB directorates at work: a letter in Yekaterinburg, a report in Ingushetia, a criminal case in Komi. The grounds differ each time: “fake news,” an unfiled report, treason. The target is always the same: the person who built an independent outlet.

Not just the author

You do not have to be famous to be prosecuted. The same laws are used against a local newspaper, a student magazine and a freelancer.

  • A rank-and-file reporter. In Pskov, Denis Kamalyagin (profile in Russian), editor-in-chief of Pskovskaya Guberniya, was sentenced in absentia to three years. By October 2025, a case for “discrediting the armed forces” — an offense that punishes public criticism of the military — had also been opened against Pavel Dmitriev (profile in Russian), a journalist at the same outlet (Mediazona (in Russian), CPJ).
  • A student media editor. In January 2025, a case was opened against Leonid Spirin of Kazan’s Groza for repeatedly “discrediting the armed forces” over posts and comments on Telegram (Current Time (in Russian)).
  • A former editor of a closed outlet. Muchnik was fined and put on a wanted list years after TV2 closed.
  • Readers. In 2024, courts issued 81 rulings fining journalists and readers for “participating” in the activities of “undesirable” media. The Yakutia branch of the Center for Combating Extremism, known as Center E, which tracked links on social media, brought 34 of those cases (EUAA, citing Mediazona).

Leaving does not end the case

Yevloyeva left three years before her first criminal case, Kosygin four years before he was put on the wanted list. Emigration stopped neither.

Since Feb. 24, 2022, Russian courts have sentenced 27 exiled journalists to prison in absentia, according to a CPJ tally (CPJ). Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, counted 66 media workers arrested or convicted in absentia over their work as of October 2025; the average sentence in absentia is eight years (RSF).

A sentence in absentia has real consequences abroad, too:

  • Wanted lists and extradition. A court in Prague rejected Russia’s request to extradite journalist Farida Kurbangaleeva. Russia put Meduza’s publisher, Galina Timchenko, on the international wanted list on Oct. 29, 2025, and sentenced her in absentia to five years on Dec. 26 (CPJ).
  • Bank accounts and passports. A law that took effect Aug. 4, 2026, lets authorities freeze the accounts of exiled “foreign agents,” bar them from selling real estate and refuse to renew their passports at consulates (RSF).
  • Family. The home of Yevloyeva’s parents was searched in June 2022, although she has not lived with them since 1998 (Mediazona (in Russian)). Earlier, in April 2022, her father and her pregnant daughter were summoned for questioning (The Insider (in Russian)). The parents of Alesya Marokhovskaya (profile in Russian), editor-in-chief of iStories, had their home searched in Magadan on Dec. 5, 2024, and her mother was taken in for questioning (Mediazona (in Russian)). A search at the Kazan home of Spirin’s parents became public on Nov. 9, 2026; the only person there was the journalist’s 79-year-old grandmother (Mediazona (in Russian)).

The investigator in Marokhovskaya’s case wrote to her on Telegram, urging her to come back and promising it would all end with a fine. She did not return. In January 2025, it emerged that she had been put on the wanted list (Mediazona (in Russian)), and in October 2025 she was convicted in absentia (Mediazona (in Russian)).

She went back and got three years

Sasha Aleksandrova, a journalist from Yakutia, left Russia after the invasion began and ran a Telegram channel. She returned in 2024. The FSB detained her on March 20, 2025 (Current Time (in Russian)), and on Nov. 28 the 1st Eastern District Military Court sentenced her to three years in a penal colony for “justifying terrorism” (CPJ). The exact accusation was not made public; the local outlet SakhaDay links the case to her critical posts (Mediazona (in Russian)). More on her case: Sasha Aleksandrova: The Yakutia Journalist Who Returned Home and Was Sentenced to Three Years.

One case does not prove that everyone who goes back will be arrested. But for those already arrested or convicted in absentia, there is no question. As RSF puts it, for them “entering the country, even briefly, means immediate arrest” (RSF).

Those who stayed

Journalists who stayed are serving prison terms of four to 12 years.

The U.N. special rapporteur on Russia, Mariana Katzarova, describes torture and ill-treatment in the country as “widespread and systematic” (A/HRC/60/59, para. 78). In December 2024, Mikhaylov was put in a punishment cell for doing breathing exercises in his cell (Mediazona (in Russian)).

Shut down without a verdict

On Oct. 30, 2026, Novaya Gazeta announced that it was ceasing operations. Its editor-in-chief was never convicted. A sequence of measures closed the newsroom instead.

  • March and September 2022: publication suspended, then registration revoked.
  • April 9, 2026: a search of the newsroom that lasted many hours and the detention of executive editor Oleg Roldugin (Mediazona (in Russian)). He has been under house arrest since June (CPJ); on Oct. 20, 2026, a court extended it to Jan. 10, 2027 (RAPSI (in Russian)).
  • September 2026: “foreign agent” designation.
  • Oct. 15, 2026: a search at the home of editor-in-chief Sergey Sokolov (Mediazona (in Russian)).
  • October 2026: eviction from the office and the shutdown of the donation system (Mediazona (in Russian), Mediazona (in Russian)).

The newspaper said Russian authorities and security services had forced it to stop working (Mediazona (in Russian), CPJ, Human Rights Watch).

How the law changed

Each new rule widened the circle of people who could be prosecuted and cleared the way to prosecute those who had left.

  • March 2022. Criminal liability introduced for “fake news” about the military and for “discrediting the armed forces.”
  • April 8, 2025. The State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, passed a law allowing people who have left the country to be tried in absentia in “fake news” and “discrediting” cases.
  • June 24, 2025. A law was signed that lets authorities punish “foreign agents” for administrative offenses that, in the authorities’ view, were committed outside Russia (Meduza (in Russian)).
  • Sept. 25, 2025. The State Duma passed a law making “foreign agents” criminally liable after a single administrative violation. Previously, it took two within a year (RSF).
  • Aug. 4, 2026. A law took effect that restricts exiled “foreign agents” and defendants in “undesirable organization” cases: bank accounts, real estate, driver’s licenses, consular services.

Sources: CPJ, RSF.

What the court and the U.N. say

On Feb. 11, 2025, the European Court of Human Rights unanimously found that penalties for “fake news” about the military and for “discrediting the armed forces” violate the right to freedom of expression. The applicants were Novaya Gazeta, TV Rain and 178 individuals (judgment, ECHR press release, Council of Europe summary). The judgment has not been implemented. According to Memorial, the criminal legislation “has remained, in substance, unaltered” (submission to the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers).

In a September 2025 report to the Human Rights Council, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Russia said the country had become “the third-largest jailer of journalists in the world” and that at least 65 exiled journalists faced criminal cases (A/HRC/60/59). A year later, in her report to the council’s 63rd session, she described the persecution of critics abroad, including cases in absentia, Interpol requests and extradition demands, and recommended that states not extradite people at risk of persecution (A/HRC/63/60).

In its December 2025 country report on Russia, the European Union Agency for Asylum devoted separate sections to the legal tools used against journalists and to journalists in exile (EUAA).

By the numbers

  • Journalists in custody or in prison — 31, the most since records began (CPJ, November 2026)
  • Exiled journalists sentenced to prison in absentia since February 2022 — 27 (CPJ, February 2026)
  • Media workers arrested or convicted in absentia — 66 (RSF, October 2025)
  • Average sentence in absentia — eight years (RSF, October 2025)
  • Journalists and media outlets on the “foreign agent” registry — about 550, according to OVD-Info (CPJ, November 2026)
  • Media outlets designated “undesirable organizations” — 27 (CPJ, February 2026)
  • Websites blocked over war coverage — more than 25,000 (CPJ, February 2026)
  • Journalists who left after February 2022 — more than 1,500 (RSF)
  • Russia’s rank in the 2026 World Press Freedom Index — 172nd (RSF)

These figures come from different organizations, use different methods and cover different dates. They cannot be added together.

How we worked

We selected six regional newsrooms and included only events confirmed in a report by an independent source; every fact carries a link. This is a targeted sample, not a random one. It shows how the persecution works, but it cannot tell us what share of blocked newsrooms face criminal cases: no complete registry of such newsrooms exists.

What this story does not claim:

  • that blocking a website by itself leads to a criminal case;
  • that every journalist at an independent outlet is persecuted;
  • that everyone who returns to Russia will be arrested.

Sentences, dates and charges are based on reports by Mediazona, Meduza, The Insider and Novaya Gazeta Europe, on CPJ and RSF summaries and on the EUAA report. We do not have the Russian court rulings: many of the trials were closed. The U.N. report to the 63rd session is cited from the original (A/HRC/63/60).

Data as of Nov. 12, 2026.

This story was prepared by the FACTUM.PRESS newsroom, in part with the help of a language model. The editor-in-chief reviewed the text and is responsible for what was published.

Sources

Courts and international bodies

Press freedom and human rights groups

Links to news reports appear in the text next to each fact.

This is a translation of the Russian original, «Блокировка, эмиграция, уголовное дело: что происходит с независимыми редакциями в России» (in Russian), published Nov. 12, 2026.