Hey, I love Russian vodka as much as the other guy, but I've decided to postpone my fact finding mission/fall vacation this year and visit the lunar surface instead...it's safer.
Russia Detains American Journalist
Russian authorities charge editor for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty with failing to register as a foreign agent
By Ann M. Simmons
Updated Oct. 19, 2023
The State Department said Russia’s arrest of journalist and dual Russian-U.S. citizen Alsu Kurmasheva appears to be another case of harassment of an American. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was detained in March. Photo: pangea graphics (rfe/rl)/Reuters
Russian authorities have detained an editor for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty for failing to register as a foreign agent, marking the second detention of an American journalist in Russia this year.
Alsu Kurmasheva, who holds dual U.S.-Russian citizenship and lives in Prague, where the RFE/RL is based, was detained Wednesday in Kazan, a city in southwest Russia, according to a statement published the same day by the company. She was charged with failing to register as a foreign agent, the company said.
Kurmasheva couldn’t be reached for comment. It wasn’t known whether she has made a plea or one has been made on her behalf. A spokeswoman for RFE/RL declined to comment on the case.
A law passed in Russia in 2012 requires individuals and organizations receiving funding from abroad and those deemed to be engaged in certain activities, such gathering and distributing information about the military or other restricted material, among other pursuits, to register as foreign agents or face prosecution. Russian authorities have used the law to punish perceived government critics who receive funding from abroad or are deemed to be under foreign influence, the company said.
“Alsu is a highly respected colleague, devoted wife and dedicated mother to two children,” Dr. Jeffrey Gedmin, RFE/RL’s acting president, said in the statement. “She needs to be released so she can return to her family immediately.”
RFE/RL receives funding from the U.S. government. The company’s spokeswoman said in an email that the foreign-agent law was extended to cover the media in November 2017. Ten days later, Russia’s Ministry of Justice designated eight RFE/RL news services as “foreign agents,” including the Tatar-Bashkir Service, for which Kurmasheva was an editor, she said.
The spokeswoman said that while dozens of RFE/RL journalists had been designated as individual foreign agents, Kurmasheva had not received such a designation. However, Russia’s criminal code “now requires Russian citizens to self-register as foreign agents if they engage in the ‘targeted collection’ of information that could harm Russia’s national security if provided to foreign sources,” the RFE/RL spokeswoman said in the email.
According to the company, Kurmasheva traveled to Russia for a family emergency on May 20. She was temporarily detained while waiting for her return flight on June 2. Authorities at Kazan airport confiscated Kurmasheva’s U.S. and Russian passports, the company said. She was subsequently fined for failure to register her U.S. passport with Russian authorities. Notifying the state of dual citizenship became a requirement in Russia in August 2014.
The charge against Kurmasheva was announced on Wednesday, while she was awaiting the return of her passports, her company said.
Kurmasheva is the second U.S. journalist Russia has detained this year. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, a 31-year-old U.S. citizen who was accredited by Russia’s Foreign Ministry to work as a journalist in the country, was detained by agents from Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, while on a reporting trip in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg on March 29. He is being held on an allegation of espionage that he, the Journal and the U.S. government vehemently deny.
The U.S. hasn’t been officially notified of the arrest, but the State Department had been tracking Kurmasheva’s case since May, when Russian authorities seized her passport and barred her from leaving the country, a spokesman for the department said on Thursday. Russian authorities have in the past denied consular access to dual citizens, the spokesman, Matthew Miller, said.
“This appears to be another case of the Russian government harassing U.S. citizens,” he said, which is why the U.S. advises Americans not to travel to Russia.
The charge against Kurmasheva carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, RFE/RL said.
The Kremlin has suppressed independent media in Russia since the start of its invasion of Ukraine early last year. Russia’s top independent news outlets have closed while many foreign reporters have left the country. Russian authorities have designated reporters and various outlets as foreign agents.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists expressed its deep concern over Kurmasheva’s detention for what it described as “spurious criminal charges” and called on Russian authorities to immediately release her and drop all charges.
“Journalism is not a crime and Kurmasheva’s detention is yet more proof that Russia is determined to stifle independent reporting,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator.
According to Tatar-Info, a state news agency in Kazan, authorities say that Kurmasheva collected internet-based information about Russian military activities to give to “foreign sources” and sought to use material gathered about Tatarstan university instructors who were mobilized into the army to discredit Russia.
RFE/RL said that Kurmasheva is “an accomplished journalist,” who has long covered ethnic minority communities in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, in the Volga-Ural region of Russia.
“She has reported on initiatives to protect and preserve the Tatar language and culture from Russian authorities, who have exerted increased pressure on Tatars in recent years,” the company said.
“With this new arrest, Russia is going one step further in its blackmail of the United States, which is helping Ukraine to defend itself,” Jeanne Cavelier, head of Reporters Without Borders’ Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk, said Thursday. “But journalists must not be used as bargaining chips in Moscow’s war against Kyiv.” The group called for the release of both Kurmasheva and Gershkovich.
Reporters Without Borders said that 244 journalists and media entities are currently designated as foreign agents in the country.
Daniel Nasaw contributed to this article.
Write to Ann M. Simmons at ann.simmons@wsj.com
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