“Putin must go”: Ironically, on the most important Russian holiday, two editors of a medium loyal to the Kremlin manage an anti-Putin coup. One justifies the protest action with his conscience.
Ironically, on the important Russian holiday “Victory Day”, critical articles about President Vladimir Putin appeared briefly in a medium that was actually loyal to the Kremlin – and were deleted a little later.
Two editors of the online platform Lenta.ru later claimed responsibility for the protest. Now he is probably rid of his job at Lenta, said the previous head of the economics department, Yegor Polyakov, to the critical medium Mediazona. One of the short-lived articles was titled something like: “Putin must go. He started a senseless war and is leading Russia into the abyss.”
A total of around 20 such texts were briefly published on Lenta.ru, but can now only be viewed in the web archive. All contributions began with the preliminary remark that the material was not coordinated with the management of the medium. For their protest, Polyakov and his colleague Alexandra Miroshnikova apparently exchanged the title and text of existing articles on the site.
The protest is reminiscent of an action by a TV journalist
“The most important reason was conscience,” Polyakov justified his actions. Since independent media can no longer be called up in Russia without alternative Internet access, he and his colleague decided to make their materials accessible to the readers of his medium, said Polyakov.
Nothing was initially known about possible legal consequences of the action. According to a relatively new law in Russia, there are high penalties for alleged “false news” about Russia’s armed forces.
The protest by the two Lenta.ru editors is reminiscent of the journalist Marina Ovsyannikova, who had previously been loyal to the party line and ran into the main news program of Russian state television with an anti-war poster a few weeks ago shortly after Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
Source: Stern
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