Gusov, Katelevsky, Dorogov, Shaikin and others: how Russia frames independent journalists for extortion

Gusov, Katelevsky, Dorogov, Shaikin and others: how Russia frames independent journalists for extortion

In early May, Russian journalist Alexander Gusov, who owns the newspaper Vek and the Telegram channel Novy Vek, was sentenced to five years in a high-security prison for extortion.

The sentence is standard, as is the accusation — Alexander Gusov is not the first journalist who was sent to prison for extortion. It is noteworthy that the victims of his actions — who were the CEO of PJSC "Rosseti" Andrey Ryumin and the owner of Yota company Albert Avdolyan — asked the court not to impose a penalty associated with imprisonment and stated that they had no claims against him. However, the court did not heed Ryumin and Avdolyan’s requests and sentenced Gusov to five years behind bars.

In this process, it is characteristic that the clearly political case was classified under a purely criminal article. According to the case materials, Gusov, together with the head of the companies "Digital Soft" and "Digital Reputation" Anton Safonov, media manager Stanislav Deyneko, journalists Eduard Shchurenkov and Dmitriy Zhmutskiy, as well as former CEO of Lenfilm studio Fedor Shcherbakov, organized the publication of more than fifty posts in various Telegram channels from April 27 to December 23, 2021. These posts contained false and defamatory information about the reputation of PAO "Rosseti" CEO Andrey Ryumin. As for Albert Avdolyan, the accusation is similar — Gusov allegedly placed compromising material on Yota’s owner, which was later removed for money.

As a result of the investigation and the court, Alexander Gusov received five years, Stanislav Deyneko was sentenced to the same term a few days earlier, Anton Safonov and Eduard Shchurenkov are awaiting trial, and Fedor Shcherbakov and Dmitriy Zhmutskiy fled and are on the wanted list.

That’s the essence of it. For more details — here. But in this whole malodorous affair, there is a peculiarity — almost everyone (except Anton Safonov) admitted their guilt and actively cooperated with the investigation. If this were a singular episode, there would be nothing strange about it — "voluntary confession mitigates" and so forth (as we see — it didn’t mitigate).

However, the fact is that the sentence for Gusov is only the latest episode in a series of criminal cases in which journalists are charged with extortion, repent, admit guilt, yet are nonetheless sent to prison for many years.

What Articles are Used to Prosecute Journalists

The most common charge is Article 163 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation "Extortion." It prescribes the harshest punishment — up to 15 years of imprisonment. Under this article, 16 journalists have been arrested or convicted.

The second most popular article is Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code "Public calls for terrorist activities, public justification of terrorism, or propaganda of terrorism" — under this article, at least seven journalists have been imprisoned. This article provides up to 7 years of imprisonment or a fine of up to one million rubles.

Under Article 282.1 "Organization of an extremist community," seven people are imprisoned. Under Article 207.3 "Public dissemination of knowingly false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation," six people have been arrested. For espionage (Article 276 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) — five people. Under the articles "Treason" (Article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and "Confidential cooperation with foreigners" (Article 275.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) — 2 people.

As we can see, the most popular article of the criminal code applied to journalists is precisely the article on extortion. It is applied for certain actions — most journalists who have been accused of extortion were investigating corruption and abuse of power.

While other articles of the criminal code under which Russian journalists are tried are usually applied in connection with the war in Ukraine or with coverage of processes occurring within Russia but somehow related to military actions, five activists from the Anti-Corruption Foundation, who were investigating purely economic and corruption crimes of the Russian authorities, also received charges under the article on participation in an extremist community (Article 282.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

As for the geography of "imprisonments," Moscow, Ryazan, and Moscow regions are the leaders here. In Moscow, 16 people were detained. In Ryazan and Moscow regions, three each. In most cases, it’s about the article "Extortion," although in other regions (except for Moscow) there are many more convicted journalists, but they are imprisoned for other offences.

However, in this case, we are specifically interested in the extortion charges. This article was charged, for example, against bloggers and journalists from the publication "Rosderzhava" Yan Katalevskiy and Aleksandr Dorogov from the Moscow region. They investigated corruption and police violations for several years. The last material they published was dedicated to raider seizing of the funeral business in the Moscow region with possible police assistance. In 2020, Katalevskiy and Dorogov were additionally accused of allegedly extorting 1.5 million rubles from a traffic police inspector in exchange for ceasing to publish defamatory information about him. In November 2023, the Lyubertsy City Court sentenced Katalevskiy to 9.5 years in prison, and Dorogov — to 10.5 years.

Another glaring example relates to 2025 — security officials opened an extortion case against the editor-in-chief of "Novaya Gazeta – Ryazan" Aleksey Frolov, journalist Natalia Smolyaninova, and a deputy from the "Yabloko" party, editor-in-chief of the publication "Ryazan. Side View" Konstantin Smirnov. The investigation believes they extorted 300,000 rubles from the CEO of a local company in exchange for not publishing negative articles about him. The defendants do not admit guilt. Smirnov called this case revenge for his campaign against the abolition of local self-government in the region. In February, the court placed Smolyaninova under house arrest, while Frolov and Smirnov were sent to a pre-trial detention center.

The shortest prison term — two years — was received in August 2022 by the former publisher of "MK Chernozemye" Denis Shaikin. The court found him guilty of extorting from a bread factory owner for refusing to publish material about a raider seizure of a competitor enterprise.

Increase in Sentences After 2022

According to the data from the "Support for Political Prisoners. Memorial" project, as of April 2025, at least 57 journalists are deprived of freedom: 37 of them have already been convicted, and another 20 are awaiting court decisions.

Although the project provides the total number of journalist sentences — for all articles they are charged with, not just for extortion — this statistic is very alarming. It becomes clear that the repressive machine is gaining momentum. Some journalists ended up in prison before 2022, but most sentences involving imprisonment (34 cases) were rendered after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

From this point on, the scale of repressions against journalists has been constantly growing: in 2024, Russian courts sentenced 15 journalists to imprisonment; in 2023, there were nine such cases, and in 2022 — only five. Apparently, this trend will continue: in the first five months of 2025, nine people were already sentenced to real terms.

Torture and Coerced Confessions

The fact that prisoners in Russia are tortured is a long-known fact. Journalists do not make exceptions in this series. It is precisely as a result of torture that confessions appear. Partially, these "sincere confessions" are explained as attempts to mitigate the sentence, but the primary factor remains torture.

It is not always possible to establish the fact of these tortures — the law enforcement system of the Russian Federation has long learned to hide them, but for example, journalists from the publication "Rosderzhava" Yan Katalevskiy and Aleksandr Dorogov were subjected to them quite actively: they were beaten both during detention and while in custody.

Other facts of torture are also reliably known. Although they were applied to journalists accused of other articles, it does not change the essence. For example, it is known that the journalist of the RusNews portal Mariya Ponomarenko, convicted under the article "Public dissemination of knowingly false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation" to six years, was created such conditions in the colony that she ended up slashing her veins and going on a hunger strike. Ponomarenko stated that the colony administration was trying to drive her to suicide.

Ukrainian journalist from "Radio Liberty" Vladyslav Yesypenko, detained in Crimea in March 2021 and sentenced to six years on fabricated charges, spoke about beatings and electric shocks applied to him in an attempt to obtain confessions.

The fate of Ukrainian journalist Viktoriya Roshchyna is even more horrific; she went missing on August 3, 2023, after passing Russian border control while trying to enter occupied Ukrainian territory via Russia. Security forces acknowledged detaining Roshchyna in April 2024. Her body was returned to her family only at the end of February 2025. The body bore numerous signs of torture, including abrasions and bruising, a broken rib, and electrical burn marks. It was later revealed that some organs of the deceased’s body were missing when returned to Ukraine.

Although Viktoriya Roshchyna was not a Russian citizen, and it’s not even known if a criminal case was initiated against her, her fate, like that of other arrested journalists, clearly demonstrates what the law enforcement machine of the Russian Federation represents.

The trend towards an increasing number of detained journalists, both in general and specifically for extortion, is also evident. It is understood by both the authorities and the journalists themselves that there is no talk of justice. As noted by the authors of the "Support for Political Prisoners. Memorial" project, extortion cases are based either on direct falsification or on evident bias of the investigation and the court. The criminal cases themselves are aimed at ceasing the activities of specific journalists and intimidating the journalistic community as a whole.