The Enemies List: How the authorities divide the labor of crushing Russia’s free press

The nature of political violence in Russia changed in the summer of 2021. What was once a disparate collection of draconian laws and legislative amendments (four categories of "foreign agent," a registry for "undesirable" organizations, and a growing list of "extremists") has now coalesced into a single campaign. Having destroyed the anti-Kremlin opposition, the Russian authorities have turned their attention to the free press. Since April, officials have designated seven newsrooms and 20 individual journalists as "foreign agents," and banned an entire outlet as "undesirable." The federal censor has blocked a handful of news websites, forcing several publications to close down permanently. The independent media outlets yet to receive any special status from the Russian government nevertheless operate in constant fear of police raids and lawsuits. The agencies responsible for this attack on Russia's free press have worked so swiftly that the public still knows alarmingly little about how this repressive system operates. Meduza special correspondent Lilia Yapparova investigated the apparatus that's been turned against Russia's independent journalists and uncovered how collaboration between a group of "civic informants," the state media outlet RT, and Russia's national security bloc fuels this summer's crackdown. Original Article: https://meduza.io/en/feature/2021/08/27/the-enemies-list