russian journalists in latviarussian journalists in latvia

On December 1st, TV Rain, an independent Russian television station that had been banned from Russian cable and satellite channels, was in its fifth month of broadcasting from Riga, the capital. This story was originally published by the Reuters Institute and is reprinted here with permission. "It's crazy," he told me. I will not assume a position that will turn me from a Russian journalist into a person who defends the interests of other people.. Our team includes some of Russia's top professionals in news . We are strong.Sergei Lavrov, Russian foreign minister: Zelensky smokes, snorts or injects so much stuff it's impossible to comprehend his words. All rights reserved. This service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced. A prominent Russian journalist who has been vocal about human rights abuses in Chechnya was attacked on Tuesday. Watch Biden's remarks in the player above. I watched that nights broadcast of Here and Now with a dozen members of the staff, including Sonya Groysman, the correspondent who had been reporting on the atrocities committed by the 27th Motorized Rifle Brigade. Sauer invited TV Rain to work out of the building, too. Journalists from the last remaining independent news network in Russia have left the country for their own safety, one day after Russia instituted a digital roadblock against the network. Russia protested on Friday after Latvia charged several journalists from the Rossiya Segodnya news agency with violating European Union sanctions. This seems to be the waterline. Before joining the Mexico bureau in 2021 he spent eight years reporting on Venezuela and the surrounding region from Caracas. And we expect these people, while they are experiencing all of this, while they are also unable to stop work, to be heroes, to continue fighting against the war, and to make no mistakes, she said. At that point, we thought: Well probably stay in Riga for much longer, Dolin said. All our sources are now anonymous, Timchenko told me, and all our journalists are now anonymous., Meduzas readers in Russia have to use virtual private networks, or V.P.N.s, to circumvent the Kremlins censorship. But now, when journalists ask me who I am, I tell them that Im a Russian journalist. She and Dzyadko had both recently been designated foreign agents by the Kremlin. After spending a couple of days in Vilnius, they flew to Georgia, where Holods new office was supposed to be. abc.net.au/news/russia-information-war-latvia-exiled-media-tv-rain/101956932 Russian media propaganda used to be extreme, now it's verging on insane. When he started receiving anonymous threats on Facebook in the days after Russias invasion of Ukraine, Dolin decided to take his family to Riga initially just for a couple of weeks. That, she said, highlighted a fundamental sticking point. Groysman had persuaded two more of its soldiers to talk about the torture of Ukrainian civilians. This week, Holods Victoria Lee and her husband were informed that their visas were approved, which means they can now stay in Latvia for at least one year. The following Friday, the leaders of Latvian N.G.O.s that had been helping Russian journalists hosted a press conference. According to Gunta Sloga, the toughest part of being uprooted is uncertainty. Kamalyagin, who fled Russia after the police raided his office and his home, surprised me by saying that he understood the Latvians who regarded Russian journalists as a threat to their security. For TV Rain, the second-largest number of viewers is in Ukraine. Built with the Largo WordPress Theme from the Institute for Nonprofit News. Per @RFERL's @jamiemfly: [The bureaus] will allow RFE/RL to continue to engage with audiences in Russia and Belarus, despite those governments best efforts to silence independent journalism." Even the BBC and Deutsche Welle have relocated staff from Moscow to continue their Russian services. After Latvia blocked broadcasts of Russian state TV last year, many Russian Latvians started watching the news on TV Rain instead. Exiled journalists from the independent Russian newspaper Novaya gazeta -- which suspended operations after receiving warnings from Russian authorities -- have launched a new publication in Latvia. Our apartment with a windowless bedroom in Tbilisi wasnt much cheaper.. "And we need to fight this war. He said that he acknowledged the moral ambiguity of that position: Even moral support for Russian conscripts fighting an illegal war on occupied territory could indirectly contribute to Ukrainian deaths, he said. She told us that, afterward, she got recognized in the street. I noticed that he said that we were bombing Odesa. "An aggressive Russia is a threat to Europe, to the West and to democracy. Benjamin Bathke is a Berlin-based entrepreneurial multimedia journalist. "Every neighbour of Russia is in fear because everyone understands that Putin can attack other countries too," he said. RIGA Here are some of the things Russian journalists living in exile here in the Latvian capital know they can't do: They can't go home. They made them hold a hand grenade with the ring removed. In the control room, a split screen showed TV Rains newscast, live from the studio, and TV3s prerecorded program, with the TV Rain controversy as its lead story. Seated beside him was Sabine Sile, the former head of the media-studies department at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga. Sorry. About half of the Moscow Times twenty-five-person staff joined him in Amsterdam (the rest relocated to Armenia). Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov was jubilant about Latvia stripping TV Rain of its licence, charging that the West "has now completely drowned in its own hypocrisy and lies". Do I help the conscripts? "From Mother Russia, Sarmats are staring into the distance at the United States," he sings. It was clear that this was just going to keep happening, she said. "But if you try to support a totally unprovoked criminal war for a year, you will find yourself in this hole. If that breaks apart so does the possibility of there being any journalism. In the absence of physical access to either side of the war, a sense of shared community with the audience is TV Rains only path to journalistic credibility. When a colleague and others had trouble getting into Georgia, they decided to go to Riga instead. A former President of Estonia, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, whose wife, Ieva, serves as the digital-media adviser to the President of Latvia, has been an outspoken proponent of sealing borders against all Russians, citing, among other things, a deep skepticism about transforming Russians who come here into non-imperialist democrats.. From Istanbul, she went to Tbilisi, then to Riga. When Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine, he shut down the last remnants of independent media, forcing outlets to close before their staff were arrested for spreading "fake news". Now two dozen others came, including TV Rain, the Russian services of the BBC and Deutsche Welle, the Moscow bureau of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, several smaller publications, and about half the staff of Novaya Gazeta, whose editor-in-chief, Dmitry Muratov, had received the Nobel Peace Prize, in 2021. A spokesperson for Germanys international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW), banned from broadcasting in Russia since February 3, cited similar reasonsas RFE/RL for moving its Russian bureau to Riga. Aleksey Korostelev, a former anchor for TV Rain, in Tbilisi, Georgia, on Sunday. He had to fill more than a minute of airtime. "Our unity will not falter," Biden declared. a settlement among Russia, Ukraine, and the West. Even though we are here in Latvia, we are outside of Russia, the main part of the audience is inside.". WASHINGTON Following the forced suspension of RFE/RL operations in Russia on March 6, RFE/RL is pleased to announce the opening of news bureaus in Riga, Latvia and Vilnius, Lithuania. The problems started in December when a host of a live program was ad-libbing about the appalling conditions for frontline Russian soldiers. "TV Rain does not support Russian soldiers on the front. At the time, people close to the government told me that there was no political will to enable TV Rain staff members to secure more permanent legal status in Latvia. Heres what happened with Victoria Lee, special correspondent for the small, Moscow-based online publication Holod, who writes about topics related to social injustice like the prison system and domestic violence. Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a speech at the Future Technologies Forum on July 13 that "every age demands its own heroes." Among such heroes he referred to Lavrentiy Beria, who headed the NKVD (a precursor to the KGB) from 1938-1945 and, as Putin noted, also led the Soviet atomic project. But the exiles situation is anything but. The night we visited,she was preparing a program on a Russian missile strike that killed at least 45 civilians in the city of Dnipro. Sota completely relies on donations from subscribers at the moment. a b On March 1, 2022, Valeria Ratnikova appeared on camera for her final broadcast in Moscow. "Everything on Russian state TV is such a terrible hypocrisy," she told me. They are lucky to know that their apartment buildings back home are intact, even if they cant return to them. Your email address will not be published. Moscow-based online publication Sota, which has been covering cultural, political, and ecological issues since 2015, is something of an exception. Dozens of media outlets have fled to the capital of Latvia, only to encounter a distrustful public and a set of strictly enforced laws and regulations. Why am I crying? she said. To try to contain the damage, TV Rain fired Mr. Korostelev hours after his comment, adding that the company never had and never would provide aid to any military. She's a presenter on TV Rain, a private company that was widely known as Russia's last independent television network. Within days Latvia revoked TV Rain's broadcast licence. "People say, 'What do you mean,do you want to be like China?' Korostelev introduced a report about Sergey Safonov, the commanding officer of Russias 27th Motorized Rifle Brigade, who is suspected of stabbing an elderly Ukrainian woman to death near the town of Izyum. Putin decried NATO expansion as proof of Western imperialism. Keen to maintain support for the war, Russian authorities have so far chosen not to block it. They deleted the clip, sacked the presenter and publicly apologised. Hes made quite a name for himself inside as a muckraker. "It is very important. We oppose Russias war in Ukraine. Speaking into the camera of a shaky cell phone, Doronichev said that his boss and other senior officers had spent months drinking vodka, and terrorizing local residents. He added, They would cut off peoples ears and fingers. Under any circumstances, an active-duty officer of the Russian Army testifying, on camera, to apparent war crimes would have been a major scoop; as a piece reported from exile, it was a striking achievement. (https://gijn.org/2022/06/01/how-exiled-russian-journalists-are-rebuilding-their-lives-in-latvia/). Russians are among the world's biggest users of the American website. We have to be able to say to them that our army is responsible for 40,000 atrocities.. But some Russian journalists in Latvia say stigmatization of any national group goes against the European Unions fundamental values and tests the blocs commitment to support Russians fleeing political persecution. One day its there; the next day, poofits gone. Aleksey was looking for new allies, was trying to destroy the walls of this ghetto into which the Kremlin is trying to corral the liberal opposition, wrote Abbas Galiamov, a Russian political scientist, referring to Mr. Korostelev. The population of Riga is roughly six hundred thousand people, and that of all Latvia is fewer than two million, so five hundred newcomers is a noticeable presence, Viktors Makarovs, a senior foreign-ministry official, told me. Levits said many ethnic Russians were still not sure whose side they were on. The print edition is . Our goal is to get this message across to every single one of our viewers, to as many people as possible. Russian journalist Oksana Baulina killed in Kyiv shelling Oksana Baulina reported on government corruption for The Insider, based in Latvia.She formerly worked for the non-profit of Kremlin critic . Korostelev, wearing a yellow sweatshirt with a mike clipped to its collar, began plugging a tip line, which TV Rain had started for collecting first-hand accounts of the war; Groysmans report had originated with a message sent to it. apps make it impossible to tell what country a reader or viewer is logging in from, much less to get an accurate count of individual visitors. But Mongayt spent the first nine years of her life in Odesa, and still deeply identifies with Ukraine. And so journalists at the channel, TV Rain, joined hundreds of Russian peers in exile. Even before Tuesday, Kremlin supporters had pounced, calling the backlash against the remark an example of European hypocrisy. Then Their Loyalties Were Questioned. Anatoly Kurmanaev is a correspondent based in Mexico City, covering Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. But Meduza has still found a way to report from Russia, using what Timchenko has termed proxy reporting. Meduza assigns discreet information-gathering tasks to four or five different people on the ground; writers and editors in Riga then put the story together. A number of frequent guests had turned down requests to appear on TV Rain as a result of the controversy. In Moscow, I used to work from home, making calls and writing text messages, and going to the studio once a week to record the program, he said. She added that by covering the mobilization, TV Rain could reach beyond opposition supporters to the apolitical majority of Russian people. After Mr. Korostelevs comment, the Latvian security agency called Russian journalists in the country an intelligence risk, because they could have ties to Moscows intelligence agencies or because they could be spied on by the Kremlin. So they went back to bed. Jason Walker has been continuously incarcerated in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice since 2008, shuffled from unit to unit as the threat to his safety grows. TV Rains reporters and producers often improvise studio spaces. The journalists who interviewed Zelensky were Ivan Kolpakov from Meduza, a website based in Latvia, Vladimir Solovyov of Moscow newspaper Kommersant, Tikhon Dzyadko from recently shuttered channel . Nevertheless, he said he would continue highlighting the injustices faced by ordinary Russians. Fishman originally modelled his show on John Olivers: he is funny and knowledgeable, and he used his access to Kremlin insiders to mock Putinism. . Latvia sees the war in Ukraine as an echo of its own fight for freedom. Familiar Ikea furniturea wooden dining table, a plush armchairshared the room with an open gym bag and a pile of clean laundry. The next morning, December 6th, the National Electronic Mass Media Council of Latvia convened to discuss the case of TV Rain. Finally, nobody is trying to fire their . We know there are millions of people in Russia who dont like whats going on. The team of Russian journalists at Meduza, a newly created Internet news portal, no longer live in fear of the authorities shutting down their project. (The Financial Times has also . Russian mediapropaganda used to be extreme,nowit's verging on insane. One of the first statements I made on air when it began was This is an unpopular war, and Putin has already lost, Fishman told me. Leonid Ragozin, Russian "opposition" journalist in Latvia, as promoter of Kremlin's narratives - InformNapalm.org (English) Leonid Ragozin, Russian "opposition" journalist in Latvia, as promoter of Kremlin's narratives on 10/14/2021 | | News | World Print This Post ru cz ua tr en lt sv no dk at The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. V.P.N. Ironically, TV Rain was helping to do that. Sure, there are some monsters among the conscripts. Vladimir Solovyov owned two villas on Italy's Lake Como before losing them to sanctions. A number of major Western media outlets have also relocated their staff and operations from Moscow to Riga. Afterward, Fishman and his partner, the Ukrainian-born journalist Yulia Taratuta, fled Russia with their four-year-old daughter, were denied entry to Georgia, spent a few weeks in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, and then several months in Israel before landing in Amsterdam. "We try to help people to stay sane inside Russia because millions are isolated," Martynov said. The last part of the broadcast was another non-apology apology from Sindeeva, TV Rains owner. They would keep reminding themselves that they are the lucky ones. The lines are reinforced at weekly meetings between Russian state media and government officials. Early on, two Baltic states were exceptions: Lithuania, which had long served as a base for Russias political opposition, and Latvia. Id almost forgotten what it feels like to be an outcast, Valeria Ratnikova, a twenty-three-year-old news anchor, told me. Murdered Russian journalists (1 C, 7 P) Russian music journalists (3 P) Russian music critics (25 P) N. Russian newspaper editors (2 C, 31 P) O. Russian opinion journalists (2 C, 16 P) P. Russian photojournalists (14 P) R. Russian reporters and correspondents (1 C, 13 P) S. YouTube is proving to be a major chink in Russia's censorship armour. Im always wanting to explain myself, she said. But there are also tech workers, entrepreneurs, designers, and actors whove decided they would prefer exile to living in an authoritarian state. But, she went on, many of them dont have enough money to pay bills, let alone buy plane tickets, and moving again would be re-traumatizing for them and their children. If I go back to Russia, theres probably a criminal case waiting for me.. Kotrikadze started to cryand immediately stopped herself. They read the publication for reporting on the war in Ukraine but also for practical information. The media regulator said that his comment was TV Rains third violation of its rules, adding that it had received classified information about the channels activities from the state security agency. A quarter of the population is Russian-speakingthanks to decades of Soviet occupation. Mr. Galiamov was a speechwriter for Mr. Putin but has broken with the Russian president. Novaya Gazeta (Russian: , IPA: [novj zet], lit. Alexey Kovalev, Meduzas investigative editor, said being in exile brought him a lot closer to his colleagues, especially since he had mostly worked remotely before. It was in this context that TV Rain arrived in Riga: it was welcomed as an antidote to the Kremlins propaganda, but it also encountered a distrustful public and a new set of laws and regulations that were enforced with existential urgency. Latvia has offered "impressive leadership" on Ukraine and in supporting Russian journalists who provide "truthful, independent information about the toll, the scale, the scope of Russia's . When we met, at a caf in town, she told me that she had chosen to stay on the coast because she wanted to make the best of her exile. This was a wolf in sheeps clothing., Ekaterina Kotrikadze, TV Rains news director, opened that afternoons broadcast of Here and Now with a clarification and an apology. Ill pay for this out of the corporate budget, he said, waving off one of the reporters with him. Editor Kirill Martynov claims they are reaching up to 30 million Russians a month. A conversation with Latvia-based journalists Ivan Kolpakov and Inga Springe. March 11, 2022 Eurasia Program Home / Articles / Latvia's First Response to Russia's War in Ukraine The shock wave of the Russian attack against Ukraine is sensed worldwide, yet the closer one stands to the epicenter of tragedy, the stronger one feels the trembling of the ground. I couldnt go to Tbilisi or Yerevan as plane tickets were already prohibitively expensive. Reporting from the Outside: Lessons from Investigative Journalists in Exile, How Germanys Journalists Built a Crowdfunding Campaign to Save Russias Meduza, Investigating Russia and the War in Ukraine. Comment * document.getElementById("comment").setAttribute( "id", "a872ae590313ba4f0f4193c7ccea965d" );document.getElementById("e7f10f581b").setAttribute( "id", "comment" ); Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. But in the world of social media, as in the world of live television, everything is iterative. And unlike Russia, where 28 journalists have been murdered since 2000, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Latvia is a safe country to report from: The EU country had the 22nd-best rating in RSFs 2022 World Press Freedom Index. The team continued to work, as it had through a multitude of crises back in Russia, broadcasting on YouTube and on its Web site. A news host's comment about helping troops prompted the Latvian authorities to revoke the license of TV Rain,. Novaya Gazeta is publishing online through encrypted channels, providing links to VPNs to bypass Russian firewalls. A clarinet solo, lively conversations over buffet dinner and wine, a speech by the Dutch ambassador and children playing ping pong in the courtyard create an aura of normalcy. On December 22nd, TV Rain was granted a Dutch broadcasting license. Latvia's Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins has assured that while he supports Russian journalists in exile working within the country, they must respect the law, in line with the revocation of the . (All three countries joined the European Union in 2004.) He envisioned it as a professional community center of sorts. Exiled Russian dissidents cannot find the required message that will be simultaneously accepted in Europe, Ukraine and not alienate the Russian audience, Maria Snegovaya, a Russian political scientist, wrote on Facebook. Maybe they don't care, I don't know.". Back in Russia, police had shown up at her house in the countryside, thrown her to the floor, and handcuffed her; another group of police raided her apartment in the city of Pskov, where her husband was staying. It didn't matter. In 2019, one of Meduzas reporters was arrested on trumped-up drug-possession charges, but he was released after a few days, following unprecedented protests. She looked exhausted. When we were bombing Odesa, we had a local journalist on the air, Fishman said. And I think it's in the interest of Europe.". "But the main part of our team will move to Amsterdam, to the Netherlands.". But for all the rhetoric of democratic solidarity, Latvia's hospitality to the exiled journalists has proven to have limits. Even after two months in Latvia, Kovalev still doesnt have health insurance or a bank account, let alone a permanent residence permit. 'New Gazette') is an independent Russian newspaper known for its critical and investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs. An even greater number of them, possibly thousands, are said to have fled to Georgia and Armenia, where Russian citizens neither need a visa nor a travel passport. Now I do the exact same thingand yet I feel like Ive lost touch.. Even as he heard the words coming out of his mouth, Korostelev wondered what had come over him. The journalist Evan Gershkovich has been in captivity in Moscow for 100 days on espionage charges. Its like Odesa is a different planet, and rockets no longer go there. She caught herself. Latvia's president is unapologetic. One topic that has strongly resonated with the stations viewers is President Vladimir V. Putins decision to mobilize at least 300,000 Russian men to replace his military losses in Ukraine. On April 21, they tried three different vaccination points in Tbilisi for their second shots, but without success. Required fields are marked *. It would be their third city since TV Rain left Russia, last March. I asked Pyzhik how she felt about working for a Russian television channel, expecting her to say that TV Rain was not like other Russian media, that the people she worked with opposed the war. According to Novaya Gazeta's Kirill Martynov, journalists are briefed onhow to present stories,paint Putin in a good light, explain the war and report on what is happening in Russia. Im the head of the BBC Russian Service in exile, he said, with a laugh that indicated the slight absurdity of his position. Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of shelling civilians in a village in Zaporizhzhia after three people were wounded in attacks. When the war began, he said, it was time to stop laughing. He has since started to doubt his own expertise. I do. TV Rain now had three studiosin Riga, Amsterdam, and Tbilisiand a Latvian license, which allowed it to broadcast on cable channels in the European Union. Latvia Hosted Russian Journalists in Exile. TV Rain was granted a licence to broadcast from Riga. The Georgian government had banned people without Georgian passports or at least three months of residence from getting vaccinated. The team left Russia to continue showing the reality of Russias war to Russian people, said Vera Krichevskaya, a TV Rain co-founder based in London. We still made it to Riga that day, she said. In "The Red Hotel," Alan Philps, a former Moscow correspondent, documents the lives of Western journalists under Stalin and traces through lines to media relations in Russia today. It was such a joy to see them again. He is the star of Russia's main television network,Russia-1, and one of a tiny pool of media figures trusted to interview President Vladimir Putin. Unlike Georgia, Latvia wasn't scared of provoking Russia by giving sanctuary to dissident journalists. Independent investigations have suggested that the Russian secret police may have been involved. The European Union spent much of last year devising ways to protect its media sphere from Russian interference. TV Rain had a presence in Amsterdam because of one person: the Dutch media entrepreneur Derk Sauer, who moved from the Netherlands to the U.S.S.R. in 1989 to launch Moscow, an English-language glossy magazine about the Soviet capital that was modelled on New York. Now the line is that it's being run by "LGBT Nazis" who are trying to make Russia gender neutral. That way, even if individual journalists sometimes faced intimidation and threats, the Kremlin could not persecute the publication itself. - , . Timchenko told me that eight years of working in Latvia had changed her and her staff. Alexey Korostelev, who was hosting that afternoons episode of the newscast Here and Now, was working out of the Tbilisi studio, a generic space in an office tower on the outskirts of the city. To be accessible to Russian viewers, to be able to connect with them in a manner that they respond to, we have to speak to them as Russians, Ms. Krichevskaya said. He stopped at a wine store near his building and picked up a dozen bottles of Sauvignon Blanc. TV Rain, which is known as Dozhd in Russian, began broadcasting on Latvian cable last Julyand almost immediately started racking up warnings and violations. You are just like in Alice in Wonderland, you are just falling.". The authors original photos are also republished with his permission. Theres no middle ground.. Editors at TV Rain told me that an illustrator had turned in the map so late that no one had had a chance to check it, but that the use of our military was no mistake: it was an acknowledgment of responsibility. "Like they don't remember that Russia has started this invasion. Andrew Roth in Moscow and Pjotr Sauer in Amsterdam Thu 23 Feb 2023 03.00 EST Last modified on Thu 23 Feb 2023 13.44 EST Mikhail Afanasyev wants your letters. Between Pyzhiks busy scheduleTV Rain was just one of her clientsand the frequent blackouts in Odesa resulting from Russian air strikes, it was hard to talk on the phone with them more than once a week. Bianna Golodryga speaks to Mikhail Zygar, Russian journalist and author of "War and Punishment: The Story of Russian Oppression and Ukrainian Resistance," on the strength of Putin's leadership. "In the West they continue to trample Christmas traditions into the mud. We have common values, and they are the only things that will make it possible for us to survive this war., As Sile spoke, the color seemed slowly to return to Dzyadkos face. But if you are a small media outlet in Siberia and also had to shut down, you might not have the experience in attracting donor money and fundraising. Whats more, a series of money laundering scandals in Latvia means quite a lot of extra scrutiny for any Russian journalists, on top of the security checks resulting from the Western sanctions leveled at Russia. After living in my colleagues apartment for a week, we now have our own place and our pets finally arrived on May 3! Twelve more people dispersed to other countries. Timchenko, the publisher of Meduza, arrived, having flown back from Berlin, where her publication is establishing an office. The media theorist Jay Rosen has written that the central claim to authority in journalism is being therein the place of the action, where the reader or viewer is not. All I can do is work, sleep, and rest. And, of course, they don't say anything about dead children. Kotrikadze, who was then fifteen, was in Georgia visiting relatives; her mothers body was never found.