He works for Forbes, had relaunched the news about Bucha on his telegram channel and is now in prison for “fake news” awaiting trial. They could accuse him of discrediting the army. Putin’s bulldozer of dissent also goes backwards
The Russian bulldozer to abolish dissent is also moving in reverse and went to check the telegram channel of a Russian journalist named Sergei Mingazov, who works for the local version of Forbes. In April 2022, Mingazov, in his channel which today is followed by about four hundred and thirty people and is called Khabarovskaya Mingazeta, published messages about the massacre of Ukrainian civilians in Bucha, the town not far from Kyiv. The publication took place in April 2022, when Moscow’s soldiers withdrew from the Ukrainian capital region and left behind the signs of violent occupation: torture, rape, executions. Moscow’s version is that what happened to Bucha never existed, but not everyone in Russia believed it, not Mingazov. The bulldozer then went back to April 2022 to find this “fake news” and that would have been enough to arrest the journalist who risks a conviction for having discredited the army. It was Mingazov’s lawyer who broke the news of his arrest, Konstantin Bubon wrote on Facebook that he is not even sure what the charges are about and so far he has not managed to meet his client who is in a prison in Khabarovsk. Khabarovsk is not just any place, is a region where in 2021 citizens took to the streets for months protesting against the Kremlin for arbitrarily arresting the newly elected governor. It is a region that reacts strongly and has its own propensity to protest. From this context comes Sergei Mingazov, who before working for Forbes had been in the editorial offices of Vedomosti and Kommersant.
The Russian bulldozer to abolish dissent is also moving in reverse and went to check the telegram channel of a Russian journalist named Sergei Mingazov, who works for the local version of Forbes. In April 2022, Mingazov, in his channel which today is followed by about four hundred and thirty people and is called Khabarovskaya Mingazeta, published messages about the massacre of Ukrainian civilians in Bucha, the town not far from Kyiv. The publication took place in April 2022, when Moscow’s soldiers withdrew from the Ukrainian capital region and left behind the signs of violent occupation: torture, rape, executions. Moscow’s version is that what happened to Bucha never existed, but not everyone in Russia believed it, not Mingazov. The bulldozer then went back to April 2022 to find this “fake news” and that would have been enough to arrest the journalist who risks a conviction for having discredited the army. It was Mingazov’s lawyer who broke the news of his arrest, Konstantin Bubon wrote on Facebook that he is not even sure what the charges are about and so far he has not managed to meet his client who is in a prison in Khabarovsk. Khabarovsk is not just any place, is a region where in 2021 citizens took to the streets for months protesting against the Kremlin for arbitrarily arresting the newly elected governor. It is a region that reacts strongly and has its own propensity to protest. From this context comes Sergei Mingazov, who before working for Forbes had been in the editorial offices of Vedomosti and Kommersant.
In 2023 alone, thirty-four Russian and foreign journalists were arrested in Russiaamong them also the American Evan Gershkovich of the Wall Street Journal, who is still in custody for more than a year and is accused of espionage. This week Gershkovich appeared in court, for the first time the courtroom was open to journalists, he was still in the glass box where these dangerous voices of dissent are kept. The judge postponed the trial to June, the Kremlin probably wants to hold it for a prisoner exchange. It is not the same case as Mingazov, whose arrest, rather than an international value, has an internal meaning: the bulldozer reaches everywhere, it even travels through time. We must be afraid of today’s dissent and yesterday’s sighs.
