Particle.news
Download on the App Store

Russia Revokes Citizenship of Investigative Editor Roman Anin Over Alleged Military 'Discrediting'

The move extends a campaign that uses punitive false-information laws to sideline independent reporting on the war in Ukraine.

Overview

  • Russia’s Interior Ministry announced via state agency TASS that immigration officials stripped Roman Anin of his citizenship, citing alleged crimes and the discrediting of the armed forces.
  • Anin is editor-in-chief of Important Stories (Vazhnyye Istorii), which gained notice for investigations including reporting on an alleged Putin family member and work on the Pandora Papers.
  • In March 2025 a Moscow court sentenced Anin and a colleague in absentia to 8.5 years in prison for allegedly spreading false information about the Russian military.
  • Authorities labeled Important Stories a foreign agent in 2021 and later designated it an undesirable organization after 2022, with the outlet now operating from Latvia.
  • Anin was born in the Moldovan SSR in 1986 and became a Russian citizen in 2006, as Russia’s enforcement treats reports contradicting its wartime narrative as offenses under false-information statutes.