A Russian independent online newspaper, the Kavkazsky Uzel (The Caucasus Knot), says unknown masked men tried to break in the apartment of one of its correspondents in the southwestern city of Volgograd, on January 25.
According to the media outlet, after the masked men were unable to break the door of Vyacheslav Yashchenko's apartment, they cut off electricity to the whole floor.
The men tried to break in after Yashchenko's wife refused to open the door. The journalist was not there at the time.
The incident took place a week after police searched Yashchenko's residence and confiscated his laptop and telephone, saying the search was linked to an investigation of anti-war activist Yevgeny Kochegin, who is suspected of distributing false information about Russia's military involved in the war against Ukraine.
Police told Yashchenko that he is a witness in the case as he might know Kochegin's current whereabouts, but the journalist refused to answer the investigators' questions.
Police officers then said there may be elements of a felony in Yashchenko’s online correspondence with Kochegin.
Yashchenko said that after police returned his mobile phone, he started receiving scores of spam messages.
Kochegin, a former coordinator of imprisoned opposition politician Aleksei Navalny's team in Volgograd and the leader of the anti-war Dozor (Watch) movement, fled Russia in May 2022, less than three months after Moscow launched its ongoing unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
In September 2022, Russian authorities added Kochegin to its list of “foreign agents.”
Three months later, a Russian court issued an arrest warrant for Kochegin and added him to the wanted list.
The charge against Kochegin stemmed from his online posts in 2022, condemning Russia's full-scale aggression against Ukraine.
The Kavkazsky Uzel online newspaper mostly focuses on news and developments in Russia's North Caucasus and regions nearby.