On 14 December 2022, US Congress-funded broadcaster RFE/RL reported that Andrey Zayakin, a journalist at Novaya Gazeta and co-founder of Dissernet, a renowned Russian online anti-plagiarism database, had been arrested in absentia for two months, for allegedly financing an “extremist” group.
Zayakin is being probed for having donated 1,000 rubles to the Anti-Corruption Foundation, an investigative NGO run by Alexey Navalny, a politician opposing president Vladimir Putin. Zayakin allegedly sent the donation on the same day Russia’s Ministry of Justice declared that the foundation was an “extremist” group. The Russian journalist had been initially detained in August, but was released pending investigation. He fled the country after these events.