On 6 March 2024, a court in Korolev, a city on the outskirts of Moscow, sentenced local journalist Roman Ivanov to seven years in prison on charges of publishing “fake news” on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In April, police detained Roman Ivanov, who works for the independent outlet RusNews, at his home Korolev on the outskirts of Moscow. Ivanov’s wife Mariya Nekrasova said that police broke down the door of the couple’s apartment without waiting for either her or her husband to open. Following this, officials searched the apartment, confiscating all electronic devices as well as detaining Ivanov, who was taken to the local headquarters of the Russian Investigative Committee in the nearby city of Mytishchi. Later on the same day, RusNews reported that authorities had opened three criminal cases against Ivanov for allegedly spreading “fake news” on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Each case was linked to a different publication in a Telegram channel run by the journalist: the first on the discovery of bodies of civilians in the region of Kyiv following the withdrawal of Russian troops from the area in March 2022 (also known as the Bucha massacre), the second on a UN report on the humanitarian situation in Ukraine in the context of the war, the third citing the head of the Russian Ministry of Defence, Sergey Shoygu, claiming Russia was lacking ballistic missiles.
On the evening of April 11, a court in Korolev placed Ivanov under arrest for two months. This detention was then systematically extended up until the journalist’s conviction.