On 9 February 2023, Finnish newspaper Ilta Sanomat said that its correspondent Arja Paananen was unable to renew her accreditation to work in Russia, which effectively banned her from working in the country. According to Ilta Sanomat, civil servants at the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Communications Department told Paananen that her accreditation renewal request “had no perspectives”, without specifying the reason for this decision.
The Russian independent media Agentstvo wrote that Mariya Zakharova, the Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson, had earlier accused Paananen of conducting “unfounded anti-Russian propaganda”. The website of Ilta Sanomat is itself blocked in Russia since April 2022, after publishing an article about the civilian casualties of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Paananen was first accredited to work in the Soviet Union in 1990. According to Ilta Sanomat, this was the first time she was unable to renew her right to work in Russia.