Stay informed with free updates
Simply sign up to the Russian politics myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.
Russia has detained a second US journalist, accusing the reporter of failing to register as a foreign agent while collecting information online, according to her employer and a press freedom group.
If found guilty, Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual Russian-US citizen who works for US government-funded outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, could be sentenced to up to five years in jail, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.
Kurmasheva is accused by authorities of having “deliberately conducted a targeted collection of military information about Russian activities via the internet in order to transmit information to foreign sources”, the CPJ said.
Her detention follows the arrest on espionage charges of US journalist Evan Gershkovich in March, as Russia widened its crackdown on all forms of independent journalism in the country after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.
Kurmasheva, an editor for RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir language service, was first detained in Russia’s Tatarstan republic this summer. Kurmasheva lives in Prague in the Czech Republic but travelled to Russia on May 20 because of a family emergency. On June 2, as the journalist was leaving the country, she was detained at Kazan airport.
Russian authorities confiscated her passports, RFE/RL said, and she was unable to leave the country. She was waiting to retrieve her documents when a new charge of failing to register as a foreign agent while collecting information on Russian military activities was announced on October 18, according to RFE/RL.
Gershkovich, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, has spent more than six months in pre-trial detention in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said a few months ago that there had been contact with US officials about a potential exchange of prisoners.
Local state news agency Tatar-Inform shared a video of Kurmasheva being led by two men, their faces covered in black, to a local courtroom. Citing an unnamed source, it also outlined the accusations the Russian authorities have against Kurmasheva.
According to Tatar-Inform’s report, in September last year Kurmasheva collected information online about university professors in Tatarstan who had been conscripted to fight in Ukraine. That month, Russia had launched a mass mobilisation campaign that sent shockwaves through the country.
Kurmasheva, the allegations claim, “used this information to prepare ‘alternative analytical materials’ for specialised international bodies and to conduct information campaigns discrediting Russia”.
This work of the journalist constituted “a purposeful collection of information in the field of military activities of the Russian Federation, which, if obtained by foreign sources, could be used against the security of the Russian Federation”, Tatar-Inform said.
“She has reported on initiatives to protect and preserve the Tatar language and culture from Russian authorities, who have exerted increased pressure on Tatars in recent years,” said Jeffrey Gedmin, RFE/RL’s acting president. “She needs to be released so she can return to her family immediately.”
