A journalist from Buryatia has been arrested in absentia and placed on the wanted list.

On 24 July, a court ordered the arrest in absentia of journalist and former vice-president of the “Free Buryatia” foundation, Anna Zueva, for one month and eight days after her apprehension. Zueva herself reported this to OVD-Info.

The authorities have initiated a criminal case against the journalist for “justifying terrorism” online (Part 2, Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code) and for evading the obligations of a “foreign agent” (Part 1, Article 330.1 of the Criminal Code).

Zueva has been placed on both the federal and international wanted lists.

It became public on 29 July that Zueva was facing criminal prosecution, after the media noticed she had been added to Rosfinmonitoring’s list of “terrorists and extremists.” At that time, she suggested that the authorities might have initiated a case against her for “spreading fakes” about the Russian army.

“A certain G. B. Yandakov, who considers himself the senior investigator of the investigative department for the railway district of Ulan-Ude, was eagerly waiting for me in office N412 on 10 July. The day before, he sent a summons stating I was being called in for questioning as a ‘suspect,’” Zueva wrote on her Facebook page.

The journalist’s 77-year-old mother was summoned for questioning by phone. She refused, suggesting they send her a written summons instead.

In November 2024, the Ministry of Justice added Zueva to the list of “foreign agents.” Since then, she has been fined at least five times on administrative charges of violating “foreign agent” legislation (Article 19.34 of the Code of Administrative Offences). In July 2024, Zueva was fined 5,000 roubles (approximately US$55) under an article on participating in the activities of an “undesirable organisation,” due to her work with the “Free Buryatia” foundation, which was declared “undesirable” in 2023.

• Since 2019, Zueva has run her own YouTube channel, which currently has over 70,000 subscribers. Prior to this, she was a television presenter on the Buryat channel ATV. In September 2019, Zueva announced her departure from the channel due to its lack of coverage of protests then taking place in Ulan-Ude, a major city in eastern Siberia. In 2023, the journalist left Russia. She was vice-president of the “Free Buryatia” foundation for some time, but in November 2024 left the organisation.