On 26 May 2023, a court in Saint Petersburg fined journalist Mariya Zholobova five thousand rubles for working with iStories, an independent Russian media outlet known in Russian as ‘Vazhnye Istorii’. Zholobova was found guilty of collaborating with an ‘undesirable organization’, which iStories had been labelled as in March 2022.
Zholobova was fined for an emailed request she sent in November to a weapons factory in Saint Petersburg, which was reportedly producing drones used by the Russian army in Ukraine. The journalist’s request was part of an investigation conducted jointly by iStories, the Reuters agency and the British research center RUSI, aiming to shed light on sanction evasion practices by the factory, thanks to which it was allegedly able to procure itself with Western components for the production of drones.
According to the independent Russian media outlet MediaZona, Zholobova’s fine was the first case of legal action against a journalist due to their work for a media outlet labelled as an “undesirable organization” in Russia.