FSB opens three more cases against journalists reporting from Sudzha

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) has opened proceedings against the US journalist Nick Paton Walsh and the Ukrainian correspondents Olesya Borovyk (Kordon.Media) and Diana Butsko (Hromadske), reports the Russian propaganda outlet RIA Novosti. The FSB accuses the journalists of illegally crossing the border and filming videos near Suzhs. The journalists face up to five years in prison.

As the IMI reported, the journalists of the Italian TV channel RAI, who were filming a report from Kursk region (Russia), were sent back to Italy and the FSB opened cases against them for illegally crossing the Russian border.

The Sudzha events and Russia's response

Vladimir Putin's administration has instructed the state-controlled media to compare the events in Kursk region with the Battle of Kursk during the Second World War and to avoid the idea of opening a "new front" at all costs.

The media were also ordered not to talk about the possible advance of Ukrainian troops to Kurchatov, where the Kursk nuclear power plant is located, so that the audience would have no "sense of nuclear threat."