Russia issues arrest warrants for Western reporters
Moscow has issued arrest warrants for seven journalists who illegally entered Russia’s Kursk Region while embedded with Ukrainian troops last month.
Ukraine sent several brigades across the border on August 6, eventually seizing the town of Sudzha and several smaller villages. Russian authorities subsequently opened a criminal probe into several Western news crews that accompanied the invaders.
The Internal Affairs Ministry in Moscow announced on Thursday that it had put out warrants for the arrest of four journalists from US, German and Italian outlets, as well as three Ukrainian nationals.
They were named as Nick Paton Walsh (CNN), Nick Connolly (Deutsche Welle, DW) Stefania Battistini and Simone Traini (Radiotelevisione Italiana, RAI), Natalia Nagornaya (1+1), Diana Butsko, and Olesya Borovik.
The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) had earlier named five suspects. Connolly and Nagornaya were apparently added to the wanted list this week. If convicted, they face up to five years in prison for illegally crossing the border.
The Western reporters traveled in an armored convoy with Ukrainian soldiers, filmed damaged buildings in the center of the Sudzha and spoke to Russian civilians.
According to CNN’s Anderson Cooper, the Ukrainian military “accompanied” Paton Walsh and reviewed the videos his crew filmed prior to their release “for operational security reasons,” but had “no editorial control” over CNN’s reporting.
Moscow has accused the Western reporters who crossed the border of providing “propaganda” on behalf of Ukraine. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said the foreign journalists embedded with Ukrainian troops were “manipulating public opinion” and staying silent about “Kiev’s crimes against civilians.”
