Moscow authorities reportedly confiscate copies of newspaper featuring image of Navalny on front page

The Moscow authorities confiscated copies of an issue of the newspaper Sobesednik which featured an image of Alexey Navalny on the front page “either everywhere or nearly everywhere,” report news outlets Ostorozhno Novosti and SotaVision, citing Sobesednik journalist Elena Milchanovska.

One of Meduza’s readers said he wasn’t able to purchase the issue of Sobesednik with Navalny on the cover. They tried to find it at a news kiosk but the vendor told him that “there’s no newspapers, there was an order not to sell this issue.” The reader didn’t specify in which city this took place.

“All this is very serious and even a bit scary for us. Why they confiscated the issue, we don’t know: we didn’t violate any laws,” said Milchanovska. She added that this led the newspaper to lose approximately 300,000 rubles (around $3,200).

The journalist noted that the newspaper has lost many sources of income over the past two years, and that Russian federal censor Roskomnadzor consistently blocks their website.