In Ryazan, in the case of "extortion", the editor-in-chief of "Novaya Gazeta — Ryazan" Alexey Frolov and a member of the federal bureau of the Yabloko party, the chief editor of the publication "View from the Side" Konstantin Smirnov, have been detained, state agencies report. TASS, citing a source, reports that "investigators detained Frolov and Smirnov, as well as their alleged accomplice Natalya Smolyaninova in the case of extorting 300 thousand rubles from the general director of a specialized commercial organization in the Ryazan region".
The regional Investigative Committee reported the initiation of a criminal case against "the head of a regional network publication, who is a deputy of the Council of Deputies of a municipal formation in one of the districts of the Ryazan region". Apparently, this refers to Konstantin Smirnov, who, according to law enforcement, in 2024 "entered into a criminal conspiracy with his acquaintance, who was previously a journalist" and "published several articles about the acting general director of a specialized commercial organization in the Ryazan region with defamatory information undermining his business reputation, diminishing his honor, dignity, and good name. After this, the perpetrators organized a personal meeting with the victim, at which they demanded money to stop publishing defamatory texts. He handed them 300 thousand rubles".
The publication "View from the Side" writes that Smirnov does not admit his guilt. In "Yabloko", they believe this is revenge for his active deputy and political work, particularly for the campaign against the abolition of local self-government in the region.
How Alexey Frolov is connected to the criminal case is still unknown.
An accusation of extortion is a popular way to deal with opposition journalists. In November 2023, a Moscow region court sentenced journalists of the "Rosderzhava" project Alexander Dorogov and Yan Katelyevsky, who were accused of extorting 1.5 million rubles from a traffic police inspector. They were sentenced to 10.5 and 9.5 years in a strict regime colony, respectively. The third figure in the case, Dmitry Filimonov, who changed his testimony several times and admitted that he falsely accused the journalists under pressure from operatives, received a suspended sentence of 7 years. And the son of a regional deputy, who received money from the policeman, became a witness instead of an accused.