Week-ending 29 August 2025
‘Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, its media has experienced an unprecedented crackdown. Hundreds of journalists have been forced into exile, where they continue to face transnational legal persecution, and their families have been harassed back home. Meanwhile, reporting from inside Russia has become increasingly difficult, with journalists and media outlets often silenced by laws criminalizing independent coverage’.
– Committee to Protect Journalists
Source: ‘Russia’s repression record,’ CPJ, 28 August 2025
Background from CPJ: Since February 24, 2022, CPJ has documented [Source: CPJ, OVD-Info]:
- 26 journalists imprisoned on criminal charges: 14 Russian, 10 Ukrainian, and 2 American. Of these, 4 released, 2 exiled, and 1 killed. [To see CPJ’s 2022-2024 prison data by most recent, click twice on Date column. For 2025, see Ekaterina Barabash and Sasha Aleksandrova.]
- Charges against those jailed: 8 for “fake” news; 14 for terrorism, extremism, and other anti-state crimes; 4 were undisclosed.
- 14 exiled journalists sentenced to jail in absentia.
- 304 journalists and media outlets branded “foreign agents.”
- 23 media outlets banned as “undesirable.”
- More than 25,000 websites blocked in connection with war reporting.
