Russia mocks justice as four journalists sentenced to five and a half years in prison
On 15 April, four Russian journalists were sentenced to five years and six months in prison for “extremism” for covering the activities of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in a sham trial in Moscow. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns this unjust decision, handed down by a judiciary subservient to the Kremlin, and calls for their immediate release.
The victims of this severe, wrongful decision are Antonina Kravtsova (also known as Favorskaya) and Artyom Kriger from the independent Russian media outlet SOTAVision; Konstantin Gabov, a contributor to Reuters and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL); and on Sergei Karelin, a freelance journalist for the German outlet Deutsche Welle and the American news agency Associated Press. They have also been banned from “administering websites for three years.” The sentences were pronounced this Tuesday, 15 April, by the Nagatinsky District Court in Moscow at the end of a closed-door trial. A few days earlier, the prosecutor in Moscow requested a sentence of five years and eleven months for each journalist — nearly the maximum six-year term allowed under Russian law.
Detained since 2024, the four were prosecuted for “collaboration with an extremist organisation” due to their coverage of opposition figure Alexei Navalny, who died in prison in Russia on 16 February 2024. Alexei Navalny and his Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) were designated as “extremist” by Russian authorities in 2021.
“The collective trial and sentencing of journalists simply for doing their jobs sets a chilling precedent in Russia, where reporting freely is a crime. The Kremlin does not make judgments based on facts — it silences those who expose its repression, report on its invasion of Ukraine or dare to challenge its propaganda. RSF condemns this unjust, Kremlin-orchestrated verdict and demands the journalists’ immediate release.
Banned topics
In addition to the oppressive trial, journalists covering the case were subjected to acts of intimidation outside the courtroom. On 20 March, journalist Ekaterina Anikievich of SOTAVision was detained for several hours at a police station, denied access to a lawyer, and given no explanation for her detention.
The legal repression of journalists who reported on Navalny’s work extends far beyond the Russian capital. On 27 March 2024, Olga Komleva, a correspondent for the independent outlet RusNews in Ufa — a city over 1,300 kilometres east of Moscow — was arrested. Authorities have accused her of “belonging to an extremist group” and “spreading false information” about the Russian army.
RSF has documented at least 38 journalists currently imprisoned by Russia, including at least 18 Ukrainian journalists. Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, more than 1,500 Russian journalists have been forced into exile.
Ranked 162nd out of 180 countries and territories in the RSF 2024 World Press Freedom Index, Russia is the world’s fourth-largest jailor of journalists, following China, Myanmar and Belarus.
