Russia Nabs Another US Journalist

A second US journalist has been detained in Russia. Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual Russian-American citizen and Prague-based editor for Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), was detained Wednesday in the southwest city of Kazan, which she was prevented from leaving months earlier. She'd traveled to Russia in May for a family emergency but was temporarily detained at Kazan's airport while trying to fly out on June 2, her employer said. "She was fined for failing to register her US passport with Russian authorities," Reuters reports. Officials confiscated both her passports. She was still awaiting the return of the documents when she was charged Wednesday with failure to register as a foreign agent. She may be the first person charged with the crime, per the New York Times.

Since 2012, Russia has required any person or organization that it perceives as receiving foreign funding to register as a foreign agent, with offenders facing a maximum penalty of five years in prison. RFE/RL—which had links to the CIA during the Cold War, but says its involvement with the agency ended in 1972—receives funding from the US government, per Reuters. Kurmasheva had been working for RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service, which caters to audiences in Russia's multiethnic Volga-Ural region. The journalist, who edited an anti-war book following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, was covering ethnic minority communities in the neighboring regions of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, "where groups of people have sought greater autonomy from Moscow," per the Times.

Russian news outlet Tatar-Inform said authorities accused her of gathering information on Russia's military activities, to be shared with foreign sources, per NBC News. RFE/RL acting president Jeffrey Gedmin is calling for the immediate release of the "highly respected colleague, devoted wife, and dedicated mother to two children," as is the Committee to Protect Journalists, which describes the charges against her as "spurious." Russian journalist Dmitri Kozelev calls Kurmasheva "another hostage," per the Times. She is the second US journalist detained in Russia this year. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested on what the US government considers bogus espionage charges in March. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. (More Russia stories.)