After their editor-in-chief was forced out for having published an interview with a controversial Ukrainian political leader, the editors and staff of Lenta.ru published this statement. — Ed.
Dear readers!
Today, the 12th of March, the owner of the Afisha-Rambler-SUP company, Aleksandr Mamut sacked the editor-in-chief of Lenta.ru, Galina Timchenko. Alexei Goreslavskiy, the deputy director-general for external communications, has been made the new editor-in-chief.
Unfortunately, this is not a staff reshuffle, so it needs some explanation. We believe that this reassignment represents direct pressure on the editorial office of Lenta.ru. The dismissal of an independent editor-in-chief, and the direct orchestration of the reassignment of someone from the Kremlin cabinet, is a violation of the law on media, which discusses the inadmissibility of censorship.
Over the last couple of years, the space for free journalism in Russia has shrunk dramatically. Some publications are directly controlled by the Kremlin, some through supervisors, and others by editors who are afraid of losing their jobs. Some media oulets have closed, others will be closing in the coming months. The disaster is not that we have nowhere to work. The disaster is that it looks like you have no more to read.
We certainly expected them to come for us.
We don’t believe this will last forever. In any case, you, our dear readers, should know about it.
We hope that we’ll meet again soon.
Your dear editors.
Andrei Kozenko, special correspondent
Igor Belkin, new media producer
Timur Karpov, photo editor
Nadezhda Vainer, Games editor
Olga Osipova, photo editor
Aleksandr Ratnikov, Economics editor
Lena Averyanova, From life editor
Vladimir Tsybulskiy, Russia editor
Nelly Aleksanyin, managing editor
Anna Kozyreva, FSU editor
Denis Dmitriev, analyst
Irina Ryabova, Economics editor
Anton Klyuchkin, Russia manager
Pavel Borisov, editor
Tatiana Bortsova (Zverintseva), Russia editor
Ilya Azar, special correspondent
Svetlana Reiter, special correspondent
Daniil Turovskiy, special correspondent
Dmitry Migunov, Economics editor
Darya Yeremina, World editor
Grigoriy Levchenko, editor
Aleksandr Filimonov, commissioning editor
Konstantin Benyumov, manager of Internet and Media
Dmitry Ivanov, text control manager
Svetlana Chistyakova, Science and technology editor
Denis Slepov, video correspondent
Mikhail Zelenskiy, Russia editor
Pyotr Bologov, FSU manager
Maria Myagkova, dom.lenta.ru project manager
Anastasia Khartulari, project manager
Viktor Stepanov, Internet and Media editor
Aleksandr Yershov, Science and Technology editor
Valentin Makov, World editor
Aleksandr Polivanov, Economics editor
Igor Petrushov, launch team editor
Maria Novikova, text control manager
Sergei Kozlovskiy, Economics editor
Sasha Zerkaleva, Culture editor
Dmitry Danilov, project editor for dom.lenta.ru
Aleksei Ponomarev, senior editor
Elizaveta Surganova, Internet and Media editor
Andrei Konyaev, Science and Technology manager
Vasiliy Sychev, Science and Technology editor
Pavel Bednyakov, managing photo editor
Anastasia Golovenchenko, photo/multimedia desk editor
Andrei Melnikov, Sport manager
Aleksandr Atemyev, deputy chief of special correspondents
Andrei Kuznetsov, Culture manager
Yaroslav Zagorets, Motoring project manager
Lyudmila Lyagushkina, world editor
Zaur Abasmirzoev, technical director
Kseniya Gokhgut, manager of technical affairs
Konstantin Savelyev, lead developer
Alexei Kurepin, developer
Aleksandr Kleimenov, developer
Leonid Kalmankin, systems programmer
Dmitry Bodunov, systems administrator
Konstantin German, systems administrator
Dmitry Kuznetsov, web technologist
Yefor Firsov, web technologist
Aleksandr Gladkikh, art director
Aleksandr Shirokov, web designer
Dmitry Tomilov, deputy editor-in-chief
Ivan Kolpakov, special correspondents’ manager
Anna Popova, Russia editor
Ivan Yakovina, World editor
Kirill Golovastikov, Culture editor
Alexei Gapeyev, managing editor, head of breaking news
Aleksandr Amzin, analyst
Lena Berezina, manager of administrative affairs
Oksana Mochalova, office manager
Pavel Khlyupin, editor
Tatiana Yershova, Culture editor
Sergei Obolonkov, editor
Mikhail Tsymbal, chief editor of the Motoring project
Igor Kurushin, photo editor
Yefim Repin, Commissioning editor of the Motoring project