Russia’s online media site Baza said police raided its office and its editor-in-chief’s flat on Tuesday, as investigators launched a probe into media leaks from law enforcement.
Baza (“Base”) specialises in criminal news, has more than 1.5 million subscribers on Telegram, and is known to have good sources within law enforcement agencies.
“Police officers raided Baza offices,” the outlet wrote on Telegram, adding that they “also visited the apartment of Baza editor-in-chief Gleb Trifonov, who is currently unreachable.”
Russia’s Investigative Committee published a post on Telegram saying it had “initiated a criminal case on abuse of authority by police officers”.
It said that raids were conducted in Moscow and in several other regions, without specifying if these were related to the Baza probe.
Police members are suspected of leaking classified information that later appeared “on one of the Telegram channels,” the investigators said.
Moscow has escalated its decade-long crackdown on independent media amid its military offensive on Ukraine by passing sweeping censorship laws, effectively banning any criticism of the military.
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