That's not what he writes

Luke Harding, a correspondent for the British newspaper The Guardian, was refused entry into Russia. When he returned to Moscow from London after a two-month business trip, he was stopped at passport control and taken to the deportation section. He spent 45 minutes there, after which he was put on a plane flying to London, and upon landing, his passport was returned with a canceled Russian visa. “Russia is closed to you,” an FSB border service officer told him.

Harding has recently been analyzing US State Department documents released by Wikileaks. In one of the articles written based on the materials of these leaks, Harding cited a document in which Spanish national court prosecutor Jose Grinda Gonzalez, in a conversation with an American diplomat, called modern Russia “virtually a mafia state.” In addition, in May 2010, he interviewed the father of Mariam Sharipova, one of the suicide bombers who committed a terrorist attack on the Moscow metro in March of that year. On Twitter, Harding wrote: “Apparently the Kremlin people are more afraid of me than I am of them.”

Gazeta.Ru recalls that in 2006, another British journalist, Thomas de Waal, a specialist on the Caucasus, was simply not allowed into Russia without being given a visa. In 2003, de Waal was a witness for the defense at the trial of the extradition to Russia of one of the leaders of the Chechen separatists, Akhmed Zakayev. In addition, he is the co-author of the book “Chechnya: A Victorious Little War.”

British Foreign Secretary William Hague addressed his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov regarding Harding's expulsion. Lavrov did not give a clear answer why the journalist was not allowed into Russia, but promised to look into it.

It is known that Harding published an article in The Guardian in 2007, which spoke about the role of then-President Vladimir Putin in the success of the oil company Gunvor, which is owned by the latter's friend Gennady Timchenko. Oppositionist Vladimir Milov also recalled this: according to him, Harding helped him and his co-author Boris Nemtsov in preparing the brochure “Putin. Results. 10 years”, where, in particular, it was said that the friends of the current prime minister became billionaires after he came to power.