Russian authorities have stripped Roman Anin — the founder and former editor-in-chief of investigative outlet IStories — of his Russian citizenship, apparently because the outlet reported on the killing of Ukrainian civilians by Russian soldiers in Bucha.
The move appears to be part of a wider crackdown on journalists covering the war in Ukraine who do not follow the Kremlin’s narrative.
A Russian court had earlier found Anin guilty of “spreading fake news” because of the reporting and sentenced him in absentia to eight and a half years in prison, along with journalist Ekaterina Fomina, who reported on the Bucha killings.
Officials in the Yaroslavl region, where Anin was registered, terminated his “previously acquired” citizenship. Anin was born in Moldova and obtained Russian citizenship in 2006.
Anin responded with a statement thanking what he called the “Russian Reich” for revoking his citizenship. He said the regime was “waging a barbaric war of agression against Ukraine - wiping entire cities off the face of the earth along with their civilian populations, bombing children's hospitals and shelters where children are hiding, raping women, terrorizing the elderly and the sick, depriving them of heat, water, and light,” he said.
He added that the same authorities have turned Russia into a “concentration camp,” alleging that political opponents are poisoned, tortured with electric shocks, mutilated, sexually abused and killed.
IStories noted that since October 2023, Russia has allowed the revocation of acquired citizenship for offenses including spreading so-called “war fakes” and “discrediting” the army, with the grounds expanded again in late July 2025. The outlet also cited a March 2024 case in which a naturalized citizen convicted under the same “war fakes” law was stripped of citizenship.
