Russiangate publication was blocked after an investigation into the real estate of the head of the FSB

UPD: in the afternoon Russiangate employees were told about the closure of the entire project, according to Open Media. There are no official comments from Russiangate yet.

The Russiangate website was blocked a few hours after the publication of an investigation into the undeclared real estate of the head of the FSB, Alexander Bortnikov. According to the editor-in-chief of the publication Alexandra Elagina, this happened "by decision of the Prosecutor General's Office for inciting mass riots and carrying out extremist activities," and she herself did not receive any notifications about the blocking. Elagina noted that the material was removed from the site by decision of the publication's investors without her knowledge.

• The site is also included in the register of Roskomnadzor, while the blocking decision dates back to 2015, when the Russiangate project did not yet exist.
• The article titled “Bortnikovka: how the head of the FSB and his deputy hid real estate in Sestroretsk” stated that the “full namesakes” of the head of the FSB and his deputies did not declare their land plots in the elite district of St. Petersburg worth more than 75 million rubles. The text also says that Rosreestr deliberately concealed the owners of this property. You can read it in full here .
• The Russiangate project appeared in 2016, the publication, as Elagina said then, was conceived as a “clone of the blog” of Alexei Navalny and publishes investigations about corruption and illegal actions of officials. Elagina is a former journalist for The New Times, the investors of the project are unknown.

What do I get from this?

The FSB almost never responds to publications in the media - and in this case everything was done instantly: it can be assumed that the material somehow particularly offended the leadership of the special service. All the more worth reading.

Artem Gubenko, The Bell