A court in Russia’s Kursk Region has issued an arrest warrant for a reporter with the French state-run network France 24, Catherine Norris Trent, citing her illegal entry into the country during a Ukrainian incursion.
Russian investigators have established that “Catherine Norris Trent, along with other unidentified individuals, acting as part of an organized group, illegally crossed the Russian state border,” the court said in a statement on Tuesday. The reporter was traveling in a vehicle belonging to the Ukrainian military to the Sudzha district of Kursk Region, the court noted.
Norris Trent will be placed under arrest as soon as she is found by Russian law enforcement. Illegal entry into Russia is punishable by up to five years behind bars.
More than a dozen Western journalists have been found guilty of similar crimes since early August, when Kiev’s forces invaded border areas of Kursk Region, seizing control of the town of Sudzha and multiple villages in its vicinity.
The Russian military has been pushing the Ukrainian forces out of the area, regaining ground and liberating multiple locations, with Kiev’s zone of control considerably shrinking over the past few weeks.
Moscow has repeatedly warned Western journalists against illegally entering the area, threatening them with legal consequences and accusing them of disseminating “propaganda” on behalf of Ukraine. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said journalists embedded with the Ukrainian forces were “manipulating public opinion” while keeping silent about “Kiev’s crimes against civilians.”