Russian law enforcement authorities have charged journalist Nadezhda Kevorkova with “justifying terrorism” over posts she made on social media, her lawyer said Monday.
Kevorkova, 65, is a Russian war correspondent, author, and filmmaker who has written about the Middle East and Russia’s North Caucasus for both the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta and the Kremlin-funded broadcaster RT. She currently runs a Telegram channel mainly dedicated to news about the Israel-Hamas war.
Prominent lawyer Kaloy Akhilgov said police searched Kevorkova’s Moscow apartment on Monday, later taking her into custody and pressing the “justifying terrorism” charges against her.
“Nadezhda Kevorkova has now been detained and she’ll be taken to a temporary detention center today,” Akhilgov wrote on Telegram, adding that the journalist expected to be placed in pre-trial detention on Tuesday.
He said the accusations against Kevorkova were connected to social media posts she made about the Taliban in 2021, as well as other posts about Islamic militant attacks in Russia’s North Caucasus. If found guilty of “justifying terrorism,” she faces up to seven years in prison.
Pro-Kremlin media reported earlier on Monday that police had seized Kevorkova’s personal electronic devices and found posters saying “They’re Not Terrorists” and “It’s Better to Protest” during the apartment search.
Her son, independent Moscow-based video journalist Vasily Polonsky, insisted that his mother “is not guilty of anything. She’s a journalist.”
Her ex-husband, another journalist Maxim Shevchenko, denied that Kevorkova had “ever justified terrorism.”
