Vitaly Portnikov: "Describing the process of collapse of the empire is a rare luck for a journalist"

"The message that I ended up in the sanctions list of the Russian Federation found me in the metro car in Kiev. I think the Russians - the defendants of the Western and Ukrainian sanctions lists - do not know where the metro is in Moscow. The Dima Kiselev, who can be very conditionally called a journalist -, moreover, he, unlike me, leads the state -owned person - is the house worker. Not sure, ”writes the observer in his Telegram channel .

“That is why these sanctions - when they are not against Rinat Akhmetov, but against Vitaly Portnikov - at first glance look so comical. What can be taken from a person who has no literally nothing in Russia - no accounts or property?

I have not been traveling to Russia since 2013 - because I consider it immoral to visit the country that wages the war against my state. I will not hide, I was interested in living there and visit. For a journalist, describing the process of collapse of the empire is a rare success, approximately how for a oncologist to monitor the condition of a seriously ill patient, think whether there are means for cure. But since 2014, Russia is not even an oncological hospital, it is a giant hospice. The patient refused to be treated, I have nothing to do there. And the keys to the collapse of the empire are now here in Kyiv.

And yet I perfectly understand the logic of people who brought me to the sanctions list. These people are afraid of the truth. They understand that the truth will sooner or later bring down their regime. That is why my surname in the list of officials and deputies is a signal. This is a warning. This is a wish to shut up. And I know that this is a warning of the killers.

There are so many blood on the hands of these people that in the case of loss of power they have one road - to prison, to the Black Dolphin or what is it called there. So why don't they want me to shut up? I understand their intentions perfectly. I remember that they already tried to intimidate me, compromise, destroy.

But I will work. "