From the Arctic, the Russians keep the flame of free information alive

From their exile above the Arctic Circle, Russian journalists are working to break the stranglehold on the media in their native Russia.

At the Barents Observer, an online newspaper that in 20 years has become a benchmark for news from the far north, two Norwegians are now outnumbered.

Located in the city of Kirkenes near the Russian-Norwegian border, the editorial office has opened its doors to Russians who have fled their country where repression has worsened since the invasion of Ukraine.

Donning a Mickey Mouse T-shirt and a Michael Jackson tattoo on his arm, Denis Zagor left Murmansk, a large Russian city 220 kilometers away, in September.

“When the war started, in my podcast (…), I talked about +dictator Putin+ and I talked about +the+war, not+about+special military operations”, the 47-year-old journalist explains.

“I am beginning to understand that it would be dangerous to continue doing this in Murmansk,” he adds in hesitant English. “If[we want to]call war a war and Putin a dictator, we are much safer here.”

The Barents Observer now has three Russian journalists and one intern, and it now publishes more articles in Russian than in English.

“We were already banned in Russia and we had big problems with Russian censorship. We said to ourselves: well, they want to cause more misery for journalists, so we’re going to cause them even more misery”, testified editor-in-chief, Thomas Nielsen.

The Norwegian said, “We don’t care about Russian censorship laws. We are here for freedom of expression and independent journalism.”

On a shelf, a Russian doll inscribed “Slava Ukrainei” (“Glory to Ukraine”), side by side with beer cans bearing Vladimir Putin’s image, antique telephones – including one “in direct line with the Kremlin”, he jokes – and a sign “On Air” (“On the Air”).

Blocked since 2019, the publication multiplies the tricks of bypassing the Great Russian Wall. According to Mr. Nielsen, mirror sites, access via VPN (virtual private network), podcast format and presence on YouTube ensure thousands of views.

The menu features common themes such as an ocean fissure in Murmansk or the invasion of pink salmon, but few are directly linked to the conflict.

Thomas Nielsen says, “We have a large audience, especially among young people in Russia, who engage and get their information about who was imprisoned, about the repression in Russia, during the war.”

“information they don’t have in the local or regional media at home”.

– Putin Spider –

Russia fell to 164th place out of 180 in Reporters Without Borders’ annual press freedom ranking, a ranking that Norway has dominated for many years.

In early July, journalist Elena Milchina of Novaya Gazeta, one of the few bastions of a free press in Russia, was beaten to death in Chechnya.

Foreign media is also not untouched by this. Witness the imprisonment from March of Ivan Gershkovich, the American correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, on charges of espionage.

“We were in the office every day and we didn’t know what would happen. Will the police come and take us away?”, testifies Elizaveta Vereykina, a former BBC member in Moscow who joined the Barents Observer.

“It’s hard living in a society that hates absolutely everything about you.”

So Tbilisi in Georgia, Yerevan in Armenia, Vilnius in Lithuania, Riga in Latvia and… Kirkenes have become the poles of exiled Russian journalists.

Intern Olesya Krivtsova waits for a work permit to be able to pick up a pen.

He also has a tattoo on his right leg: Putin in the shape of a spider with the Orwellian inscription “Big Brother is watching you”. He once wore an electronic bracelet on the other ankle.

Condemned by university peers in Arkhangelsk (north-west) for criticizing the war on social networks, the young woman has been placed under house arrest pending trial for justifying terrorism and defaming the Russian military, leaders who could face up to ten years in prison.

“Eventually, I realized the injustice that was going on, so I left,” she says.

Rid of her heavy bracelets, she passed through Belarus, then Lithuania, before landing in Kirkenes.

Thomas Nielsen says, “She said she wanted to change Russia and she wanted to do that by doing journalism.” “We said: + ok, welcome +”.