Another black day for the Russian media – a former journalist was sentenced to 22 years in prison and Novaya Gazeta’s printing license was revoked

Former journalist Ivan Safronov has been sentenced in Russia to 22 years in prison for treason. The court considered that Safronov had delivered secret information to the intelligence services of NATO countries.

Prosecutors had demanded a 24-year sentence.

In addition, the court fined Safronov 500,000 rubles, or about 8,300 euros, and his freedom of movement will be restricted for another two years after the prison sentence.

Safronov’s supporters see the verdict as revenge for his journalism in the prestigious Kommersant and Vedomosti newspapers.

On the same day in Moscow, the court revoked the license for the print version of the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta. The supervisory authority Roskomnadzor accused that the paper had not submitted its editorial code by the deadline.

Editor-in-Chief Dmitry Muratov has announced that the magazine will appeal the verdict, which it considers political. Muratov received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work last year.

– A newspaper was killed today. 30 years of its employees’ lives were stolen. The right to receive information was taken away from the readers, the newspaper wrote on its website. The article remembered the newspaper’s murdered journalists, such as Anna Politkovskaya.

– The free spirit blows where it wants and how it wants, the writing ends.

In practice, Novaya Gazeta and other independent publications have been forced to stop their operations in Russia after the country came into force after the major attack on Ukraine, against defamation of the armed forces and fake news.

In practice, any information that deviates from the official line can be considered fake news, which can result in a prison sentence of up to 15 years.

Ivan Safronov was captured in July 2020. At the time, he was the director of the Russian space company Roskosmos Dmitri Rogozin as an advisor.

In 2017, Ivan Safronov was accused of passing military secrets about Russian arms sales in the Middle East and Africa to Czech intelligence.

Safronov allegedly collaborated with a Czech journalist and a German political researcher. The Russian security service FSB considers both of them to be employees of the intelligence services.

As a journalist, Ivan Safronov specialized in following the Russian military and defense industry.

He followed his father in his work Ivan Safronovwho was also a defense journalist for Kommersant.

Father Safronov died in 2007 after falling from the fifth floor of his apartment building. At that time, he was preparing a story concerning the sale of Su-30 fighter parts to Syria and the sale of the S-300V missile defense system to Iran.

A number of independent media such as Novaya Gazeta, Meduza and The Moscow Times have called for Safronov’s release.

It was published in March 2019. Egyptian officials complained to Russian authorities that the article put the Egyptian leadership in an awkward position in relations with the United States.