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'Russian officials simply could not ignore us': inside the attack on Meduza
By:   []
Date: None

But this is not the goal: the goal is to crush freedom of speech in Russia. The only thing that connects us with Latvia is that our editorial office was based there until mid-May. I have no relations with the Latvian state, I don’t even have a Latvian visa. I have been there twice in my life, for three days in total.

All these in-kind responses to the troubles of Russian state media abroad are nonsense. If it were not for this pretext, the Russian authorities would have come up with something else. This is like sanctions, which, in theory, should work as a means of changing behaviour towards Russia. But no one expects that Latvia or the US would reconsider their position on Russia because of the attack on Meduza.

The very label of a foreign agent was invented in such a way that it can neither be properly implemented, nor ignored. It entails increasingly large fines, which a US Congress-funded publication could afford to pay – or it could take its employees to Kyiv. But Meduza cannot afford anything like that. We are a private media outlet that has no money for these fines. Therefore, you have to comply with these laws, which destroy you with the utmost humiliation. In this process, you are both the subject of the execution and the object of it.

It is clear that our readers can accept the situation. For many, the banner about being a foreign agent is automatically cut out by their ad blocker, but advertisers who pay quite generously for advertising are not ready to do so. Ninety percent of advertisers have left us. Our entire business model has collapsed.

I understand how contrived Russia’s foreign agent law is, but pay attention to how quickly Meduza, a non-state media outlet, agreed to implement this law. At the stroke of a single law, you are forced to display a sign that you are ‘different’ and you are ‘dangerous’. After submitting to the state, later they will start killing you altogether.

Well, I’m still alive, I’ve had a pay cut and my workload has increased, but they haven’t killed me.

You haven’t been killed, but they will start killing Russian journalists.

It’s not that they will start, but that it will be stretched out over time. Russia is at the top of the list for the number of attacks on journalists.

Of course, I keep my eyes open when I’m walking around, I choose my routes carefully. I put my phone in a signal blocking bag if I go to an important meeting. You need to understand that I am well aware of my privileges. There are offices of all the major world media outlets in Moscow. I communicate with them because I speak English, because I had the opportunity to learn it. My colleagues in Russia’s regions are in much greater danger.

I don’t believe that I will be killed tomorrow. But I am realistically preparing for the fact that they will hack me, seize all my equipment, find some blackmail material on me. The Russian tabloid press will, for example, publish my emails or chat logs.

Or they’ll put you in jail.

Let’s say they put me in jail. I am still at a lower risk of this than your average Russian businessman. How many governors are in Russian jails right now and how many journalists? These foreign agent warning banners apply to all media, but we all understand who they are aimed at, because any Russian state media can ignore these warnings. These laws were not invented for them, nor to inform readers that we are some kind of terrorist organisation. These annoying requirements are aimed at making the life of independent media worse.

[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/meduza-foreign-agent-alexey-kovalev-russia-interview/