On 6 March 2025, Russian independent outlet Verstka reported that a court in the Russian city of Smolensk had recently banned the Telegram channel of Mikhail Zygar, an exiled Russian journalist and writer who currently teaches at Princeton University.
In its decision, the Smolensk court reportedly claimed that there are no indications of Zygar’s “foreign agent” status in his Telegram channel. Judges also considered facts on Russia’s war in Ukraine published on the channel to be “fake news” about the Russian army, in line with wartime censorship laws currently in force in Russia.
The ruling required Roskomnadzor, Russia’s state agency responsible for censoring the internet, to add Zygar’s Telegram channel to the country’s list of banned online materials. Russian independent media later reported that this did not seem to happen following the ruling, and that Zygar’s channel remained accessible in Russia.
According to journalist Dmitry Kolezev, the editor-in-chief of Republic.ru, the decision was the first known case in which a Russian court banned a Telegram channel. The journalist argued that the ban could set a precedent.
Mikhail Zygar is known for his past work as a journalist and anchor at the now-exiled independent channel TV Rain. He is also a writer and a university professor.