Russia issues arrest warrant for exiled investigative reporter Andrey Zakharov

Russia’s Interior Ministry has added investigative reporter Andrey Zakharov to its wanted list, independent news outlet Mediazona reported on Wednesday.

The database does not mention the criminal charges Zakharov faces, but the reporter, who now resides in Bulgaria, said on his Telegram channel that he was “99% sure” that he had been placed on the wanted list for failing to comply with “foreign agent” regulations.

In 2023, Zakharov was charged twice for not marking that his articles and posts were written by a “foreign agent”, Mediazona reported.

The Russian Justice Ministry declared Zakharov, who previously worked for BBC News Russian, RBC, and the investigative outlet Proekt, a “foreign agent” in October 2021. Zakharov left Russia soon after over what he said was “rather unprecedented surveillance” by the Russian security services.

In the course of his journalistic career, Zakharov has investigated the so-called “troll farms” tied to the late Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, which used social media to spread misinformation, and the alleged third daughter of Vladimir Putin whose mother was found to own assets valued at 7.7 billion rubles (€94 million) in 2020. His investigations likely contributed to his persecution by the Russian authorities.

Zakharov now collaborates with YouTube channel The Insider Live and manages his own Telegram channel. One of his recent scoops revealed a poetry prank by Russian anti-war activists, who set up a profile for a non-existent poet whose verses praising Russia’s war in Ukraine turned out to be translations of poetry written in Nazi-era Germany.