On 1 April 2024, local online media Courrier.Sreda said that it was forced to close due to “wartime censorship” in Russia, according to a statement by the outlet and Russian independent media reports.
“After the start of the Special Military Operation [the legal term for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in Russia], we, like many others, received a notification from the Prosecutor General’s Office about [using] the word “war” in our publications, which we deleted overnight from our news sites. During the [next] 25 months of living under military censorship, I don’t remember a single quiet month – without complaints from Roskomnadzor [Russia’s internet censor], the police, the prosecutor’s office, the FSB”, Courrier.Sreda editor-in-chief Galina Komornikova wrote.
She continued: “In over two years, for two news sites, we paid almost 1.5 million rubles in fines for mentioning ‘foreign agents’ without mentioning their status. […] One day we received a notification from the prosecutor’s office, I don’t remember from which region, that we had the word ‘war’ on our website. I started looking for the article with the word ‘war’: it was from 2020. We tried to live under military censorship for two years. Now I can say that it is impossible. Because the complaints come not for violation of severe military restrictions, but simply for [writing about] the wrong topic, [using] the wrong link, the wrong approach.”
Komornikova explained that part of Courrier.Sreda’s income had recently plummeted, and that the decision to close the outlet was not temporary. Courrier.Sreda was founded in 2003 and operated in the city of Berdsk, Novosibirsk region. The outlet had an active news site since 2008.