“We are fighting the lies and propaganda of the Kremlin”

Georgi Chentemirov is former head of the Union of Journalists in Karelia, Russia, and today works as a journalist at the Barents Observer in Kirkenes, Norway. 

You recently wrote an article about the changes in the US funding of Russian media in exile. The new US administration is dramatically cutting funding to Radio Free Europe, the flagship in Russian language media in Europe. What could be the consequences for free and independent Russian language media in this situation? What is happening? 

Firstly, I want to say that this cutting of funding influences a lot of journalists working in this media outlet. Maybe hundreds, thousands of journalists, and a lot of them have been working from Russia, they are exiled journalists from Russia. These media did a huge amount of work. They covered a lot of topics connected with Russian regions and after the start of the war they made thousands articles about war and consequences of war, soldiers, crimes by soldiers and this kind of topics. So now, the main consequence is that all these people, all these journalists, they stay without work, without job. The second consequence may be even more important for society at least — that it will be less information about countries that have dictatorship regimes, including Russia or Belarus or Iran, because Radio Freedom worked not only on Russia, they wrote about all these other countries. 

And for a lot of countries this media organization was the only one source of independent, or at least uncontrolled by the dictatorship regimes, governments information. 

We know that these funding cuts will affect not only Radio Free Europe, but also a big number of other media, Russian exile media. How important are these media? (And I must say right away that the Barents Observer is not funded by US money.) 

Well, this new politics of the USA really has impacted also other Russian exile media which got funding from the USAID. And these media, these journalists, who left Russia, who worked in different European countries, they made a very big work. As example, one media that is asking for support right now, the MediaZona, they calculated the number of killed Russian soldiers. It's very important information because, for instance, Russian authorities don't show losses in the war, they ignore it and they try to make a view that there is no war, that it's a ‘special military operation’ and that in a ‘special military operation’ no one is killed, that there is no problem with killed soldiers. They are ‘heroes,’ and that they are supported. But the number of killed soldiers is at least 100,000 and these people are calculated very, very directly. Concrete persons with names. They (MediaZona) collect messages about killed soldiers, messages, messages, messages and, you know, this is a very important work for not only Russia, but for all society to show the truth and it's just one example, one example from hundreds or maybe thousands examples. 

MediaZona, Novaya Gazeta Europa, all these exile Russian media do very, very important work. 

We have a brutal war going on in Europe and we see that Moscow is using huge resources on propaganda and misinformation. So there's also an information war going on. How are independent Russian language media in exile working in this information war? 

Firstly, yes, I want to underline that of course there is an information war, but I don't want us to think that journalists are part of information war. I mean, the Kremlin started this information war and propagandists and liars are part of the information war, but journalists they don't participate in information war, they are not, I mean, how to say it, they protect society from information attacks from the Kremlin. That is the way I see it. 

Information war means that you can use all resources, including lies, which is what the Kremlin does exactly. But journalism is not about war, journalism is about truth, and Russian exile media they close the huge hole in this information agenda, because the Kremlin always lies. There are two types of lies; to share fake information or to keep silent about any important information. 

What these media [in exile] did and what they are doing right now, firstly they ruin these fakes and secondly they write about things that the Kremlin forbids to write about and that the Kremlin keeps silent about. For example losses in Ukraine, crimes which Russian soldiers make in Ukraine, the huge mountain of crimes made on the Ukrainian territories, consequences of war, economical consequences, social consequences and all these things that are out of agenda of the Kremlin’s and the pro-Kremlin media, the media controlled by Russian authorities. 

What will happen with the media that used to be funded by the US, what will happen with Radio Free Europe and all the other media that are getting funded? Is there a possibility that Europe can take over this role of support?

That is a very important question because now when we see debates around these media, some people tell "Ok, they are bad media they cannot earn money, and if you cannot earn money, please go out, go away.” But that is not true because these media cannot earn money because Putin and Kremlin cut all ways of getting money from the audiences. I mean, if you work in Europe, Russian audience cannot donate to you because cards are blocked as a consequences of Putin's aggressive war, because of sanctions implemented against the Russian state.

Secondly, an even more important thing is if your media is declared as ‘undesirable organization,’ your audience from Russia cannot donate because it's dangerous. Consequently, people reading Novaya Gazeta Europa or MediaZona or any other medias, they cannot donate because it's forbidden, it's a crime according Russian law. So these media, they cannot live without [grant] support.

Yesterday, there was a session in the European Parliament and there was a big discussion about a suggestion to support Radio Free Europe, it lasted about one hour and there was a lot of MEPs that made statements. Some of them don't support this idea, as example from Hungary and some deputies from German party AfD. 

I don't want to say that they are pro-Kremlin deputies, but we understand that there are some political powers in Europe that don't want and don't like freedom, and which actually support Putin's policies. But the big number of deputies I saw yesterday at least, they supported this idea, they told about the importance of freedom of speech, because freedom of speech 

is not only part of democracy, freedom of speech IS democracy, and that is not my quote. It's a kind of common idea and I'm not sure if this debate will have some real result. But I guess it will be, because European Parliament is a serious structure and I saw that the majority of politicians in the Parliament supports this idea. As I understand there are some countries, which are ready to support these media, even if something went wrong and I think it's very very correct idea, because if USA doesn't support, if USA doesn't make funding of this media, someone should do it.

You are one of several hundred Russian journalists that have fled a repressive regime in Russia to be able to continue free and independent journalism abroad, and you are today working in Kirkenes in the Barents Observer. What would you say is the general situation for Russian journalists in exile? 

The general situation is bad firstly because of the situation with funding, I will just shortly repeat that it's almost impossible to get money from the audience, because of obvious reasons. It's quite difficult to get money from the institutions, that used to support this kind of media. Secondly, a big number of journalists that work and stay in countries, that are not safe for them for example Georgia. Three years ago it was a kind of safe country for Russians and Russian exiled journalists, for opposition activists, now it's not a safe country, there is a lot of trouble. Not all journalists have possibility to live in Europe, which is much more safe than Georgia or Kazakhstan, not even mention Belarus. And of course it makes a lot of tension it's quite difficult to work in this tense situation when you don't know what will be tomorrow with you and your family, but they continue they do work, they make very important work.

We see a Russia that is getting more and more repressive against free voices, and that also includes people abroad. What would you say; are regime critical journalists abroad safe? 

No, they are not. We saw some very concrete cases when for example journalist Elena Kostychenko was poisoned. Fortunately she is alive she is ok, but she was poisoned. Her life was under a big threat just few weeks ago. There were massive number of articles about Hristo Grozev and Roman Dobrokhotov, investigating journalists, and there was a group of citizens of Bulgaria that was recruited by the Kremlin, and they worked as a spies, they wanted to kidnap Hristo Grozev and Roman Dobrokhotov and kill them. Luckily, these people were stopped by the special services of European countries, which is good. But its bad news that it's possible to find people in Europe, who are ready to cooperate with the Kremlin and FSB and make this special operations with this absolutely incredible purpose. 

We see repression, but we also see a higher level of censorship from Russia, and at the same time we see also self-censorship. To what extent are Russian media in exile self-censoring themselves?

I don't think that Russian media in exile make self-censorship. Of course we see it in Russia and it's obviously the only way to continue work and not be imprisoned. We see a lot of very good Russian media working inside Russia, which are forced to follow these repressive laws and not name the war a war for example. But they still write about repression and consequences of war without naming it as a war. But in exile media I haven't seen any signs of self-censorship, I mean the media and the journalists that left Russia. They write about war, they write about the crimes of the Russian army, they write about repressions, they name Putin as a killer and murderer. I don't see any signs of self-censorship.

But we see still that some media do operate without bylines. Isn't that self-censorship? 

No, it's not in my opinion. Censorship means that you don't share or you don't use some kind of information, that’s censorship. If you don't name the war as a war, it's censorship or self-censorship. If you don't write about, for example Bucha, or everyday bombing of Ukraine because of any reasons, it's censorship or self-censorship. If you write what you want to write, it doesn't mean that you are under censorship, but another thing. I understand what you are asking about; it is the question about safety a lot of Russian journalists living and working in exile. They have relatives in Russia and it's normal for people to try to avoid any bad consequences for their relatives. As I told you just 2 minutes ago, these journalists are not safe even if they work in Germany, or in Georgia, or if you work in Montenegro. You are not in 100% safety.

It's normal for people to try to protect themselves and it's normal for people to try to protect their relatives, who are in Russia, who are under control of Russian regime. Every second, the police can come, break the door and make a search, and detain their parents or relatives. It's a question about safety.

It's increasingly hard to get accurate information from Russia. How are you working with sources and information? 

Luckily, Russia is a quite digitalized country and a lot of information we can find on the internet. We can of course use social media to search some news, for example about the crazy pro-military patriotic events in kindergartens, in schools, in universities. We can find it in social media and write about it. We can find a lot of documents, we can see how regions spend money on occupied territories, how they spend money on their soldiers, and how they don't spend money on something really necessary things for people living on these territories. They don't have money to repair water facilities, but they have money to pay soldiers for signing a contract. We see it in documents, we can look in tender bases. We see court decisions. For example, just a few days ago I wrote an article about a Ukrainian, who was sentenced to 7 years in jail because he didn't want to participate in war against the Ukrainian army. It was published on the website of the court. We can find this kind of information before we can talk with people, but now we [the Barents Observer] can’t anymore because we are declared as ‘undesirable organization,’ which means that people we are talking with t are under threat.

You mentioned ‘undesirable organizations’ and there is a growing number of media outlets in exile that are declared ‘undesirable,’ and that includes also the Barents Observer. Can you say what the consequences of this new status has for your work as a journalist? 

Shortly, to work in an ‘undesirable organization’ and to work with an ‘undesirable organization’ according to Russian law is a crime, or at least a violation, so for example if I call someone in Russia and take an interview and publish it, this person could be punished. Ok, maybe this person will not be in prison right away, but there will be a fine. It will be punished, it will be persecuted and it's something that we cannot risk. We made the decision not to make this kind of work because we cannot take responsibility for people that we cannot protect. And for me as a journalist working in an ‘undesirable organization’ of course I can be punished, I can be fined for example, I can be persecuted as a criminal. There are some criminal cases against journalists and againstS editors, for example Kirill Martynov, who got his criminal case because he is the leader of ‘undesirable organization’ Novaya Gazeta Europa.