In a world already fractured by disinformation and rising authoritarianism, Russia’s latest crackdown on journalists is a chilling escalation. The sentencing of four journalists to five-and-a-half years in prison for alleged ties to a banned organisation underscores the dangerous erosion of press freedom in a country that once flirted with openness but has now plunged headlong into repressive rule.

These journalists stand accused not of violence or sedition, but of working on content related to a YouTube channel critical of the government. That alone was enough to brand them extremists under Russia’s increasingly opaque legal framework. The fact that this so-called trial unfolded behind closed doors is telling ~ truth has become too dangerous to witness in President Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The targets of these sentences were not militants or political operatives.

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They were reporters, editors, and visual storytellers ~ people whose........

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