Image by Anton Zelenov
Ksenia Larina, a journalist for the independent Moscow radio station Echo Moskvy has fled Russia, fearing her safety after several high-profile attacks on opposition media in the Russia capital. Yulia Latynina, another journalist from the same station, left the country earlier this year after her car was set on fire and she was attacked with liquid human feces while walking down the street in Moscow in broad daylight.
Anti-Kremlin Journalist Latynina Leaves Russia After Car Fire Bombed
Ekho Moskvy radio host Tatyana Felgenhauer was stabbed in the throat while working in the studio recently as well. She was critically injured but is recovering in a Moscow hospital.
“Alexei Venediktov, the editor-in-chief of Ekho Moskvy said he had asked his employee to leave Russia following a broadcast hosted on state television by journalist Vladimir Solovyov, one of the Kremlin’s chief propagandists,” reported The Moscow Times.
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“I took the decision to evacuate Ksenia Larina, and she will leave the country for at least six months, until she is guaranteed safety,” he told the opposition-leaning Dozhd TV channel. “Because the next stab in the throat might come after the program by Solovyov. There is no other way for me to protect my journalists,” wrote The Moscow Times.
“Do you want people to fight, stab [journalists] and know that these [journalists] are defenseless and unarmed? Neither the authorities nor law enforcement will stand up for them,” Dmitry Muratov, the editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, a Russian investigative newspaper, declared after buying airsoft weapons for his staff.
Russia has a long history of opposition journalists being murdered or attacked for investigating corruption in the Russian Federation. Anna Politkovskaya was famously arrested, poisoned, and finally murdered, shot to death near her home in 2006.
