On 26 January 2023, the Russian Prosecutor-General’s office declared Meduza, Russia’s most popular online media, an “undesirable organization” in Russia. The office claimed in its statement that Meduza “presents a danger to constitutional order and to the security of the Russian Federation”. What exactly constituted such a danger was not made clear. Collaborating with the media could now entail criminal liability, while sharing or liking work by Meduza on social media could be considered an administrative offence.

Over the past year, Meduza was already threatened with “undesirable” status: in July, the infamous head of the Russian private military company Wagner, Yevgeni Prigozhin, demanded this in a letter sent to the Russian Prosecutor-General. The correspondence received no apparent response. Prigozhin made the move after Meduza correspondent Lilya Yapparova published an investigation into the deployment of Wagner mercenaries in Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

In a phone conversation with IPI, Meduza’s executive director Galina Timchenko said the media would continue its activities despite its new status: “We are still trying to figure out the details, but we [already] understand that sharing links to our materials could be punishable”, she said. “The safety of readers is extremely important to us, so we will prepare and issue detailed instructions [on how to access Meduza in Russia].”