Blocking of website of Russian newspaper’s Belarus version angers Kremlin

The site of the Belarus ver­sion of Kom­so­mol­skaya Prav­da has been unavail­able both in Belarus and abroad since Sep­tem­ber 29.

“We flat­ly dis­agree with that,” Russia’s Tass news agency quot­ed Dmit­ry Peskov, spokesper­son for Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin, as say­ing. “We believe that this, of course, is a vio­la­tion of the prin­ci­ple of media free­dom.”

“Of course, we would expect the Belaru­sian side to secure con­di­tions for the work of our media on Belarus’ soil,” he added.

Andrej Zieĺcer, a 31-year-old IT work­er, is believed to have fatal­ly wound­ed a KGB offi­cer before being shot dead inside his apart­ment on Sep­tem­ber 28.

In the inter­view, which was post­ed on the web­site on Tues­day night, a woman who went to school togeth­er with Mr. Zieĺcer described him as a good per­son who “always stood up for truth.”

A pro-gov­ern­ment Telegram chan­nel attacked the pub­li­ca­tion over the inter­view, not­ing that “it will be an indeli­ble dis­grace for Belarus” if the news­pa­per con­tin­ued oper­a­tion.

Explain­ing its deci­sion to block access to the site, the infor­ma­tion min­istry accused the media out­let of pro­duc­ing con­tent that may cre­ate “sources of threats to nation­al secu­ri­ty” by arti­fi­cial­ly stir­ring up ten­sion and con­flict between the pub­lic and the gov­ern­ment.

Vladimir Sun­gorkin, edi­tor in chief of Kom­so­mol­skaya Prav­da, defend­ed the inter­view, which he said con­tained a cou­ple of innocu­ous phras­es, and con­demned the block­ing of the site as a polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed deci­sion.

Belarus’ author­i­ties believe that “only state media out­lets” can oper­ate in the coun­try and are pur­su­ing a “tough pol­i­cy to take full con­trol of the media,” said Mr. Sun­gorkin.

Accord­ing to the jour­nal­ist, the inter­view was avail­able on the web­site for three min­utes before an edi­tor decid­ed to fur­ther tone it down for fear of pos­si­ble penal­ties from the gov­ern­ment. Mr. Sun­gorkin said that the pub­li­ca­tion was being accused of “white­wash­ing a crim­i­nal.”

The jour­nal­ist expressed fears that a crim­i­nal case may be opened in con­nec­tion with the inter­view. “It’s a great shame that this sto­ry can no longer be accessed, as, if it were avail­able, any­one could read it and become strong­ly sur­prised at the rea­son for shut­ting down the biggest news site in Belarus,” he said.

The Belarus edi­tion of Kom­so­mol­skaya Prav­da has been unable to print its issues in Belarus since the erup­tion of post-elec­tion street protests in August 2020. It is no longer dis­trib­uted by Belarus’ postal oper­a­tor, Bielpoš­ta, to sub­scribers and is not avail­able at state-run news­pa­per kiosks.