(Moscow) A Moscow court on Tuesday placed in pre-trial detention a journalist working for SOTAvision, one of the last opposition media in Russia, in the midst of a repression of any critical voice.
In a statement on Telegram, the Basmanny court said Artiom Kriger would be in custody until at least August 18.
According to SOTAvision, Artiom Kriger is suspected of having worked for the Anti-Corruption Fund, the organization classified as “extremist” by the former number one opponent of Vladimir Putin, Alexei Navalny, who died in prison in February.
His media denies such a collaboration.
In recent months at least three other Russian journalists, including a SOTAvision photographer, Antonina Kravtsova, have been targeted with similar accusations and placed in pre-trial detention.
A court spokesperson told the TASS agency that Artiom Kriger was also suspected of around ten other charges, including “calls for terrorism” and “extremism”, “ dissemination of false information” about the Russian army, “large-scale fraud” or even “rehabilitation of Nazism”.
If he is charged with these very serious crimes, he faces a very long prison sentence.
“Don’t worry, everything is fine, I’m not going to despair. Man is an animal that, if you can say so, is capable of adapting to everything,” he continued, arms crossed, in a confident voice.
The journalist is the nephew of an opponent of the conflict in Ukraine and critic of Vladimir Putin, Mikhail Kriger, sentenced in 2023 to seven years in prison for “apology of terrorism” and “public incitement to extremism” in messages on the ‘Internet.
The Russian authorities have increased their pressure on independent and foreign media in Russia in recent months, in a context of all-out repression of dissident voices since the large-scale attack against Ukraine.
Artiom Kriger joined SOTAvision in May 2020, while he was a student, according to this media, which specifies that he was sentenced to eight days in prison in September 2022 after being arrested during a demonstration against the military mobilization decreed by Vladimir Poutine.
In May, Russia declared “undesirable” and effectively banned another media outlet with a similar name, SOTA, which emerged from a division within SOTAvision and which also covers political repressions.
On Tuesday, SOTA, which continues to publish content, published an alleged video of the arrest of Artiom Kriger showing him at his home, in his underwear, being violently pinned to the ground by a hooded man.
