“In connection with the special relations that have been built between the federal government and the head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, in view of the numerous personal threats thrown in recent days by prominent representatives of the Chechen Republic against the Novaya Milashina columnist, the editors have decided to send Yelena Milashina outside the Russian Federation”, - the Novaya Gazeta editorial said in a statement.
It is also reported that the journalist follows the security protocols of the editorial office, and her location will not affect the publication's coverage of the topical issue of human rights in Chechnya.
"Rain" * managed to have a small conversation with Milashina regarding her departure.
“I just understand that these are such costs of this topic that any of my publications is completely uncalculable. We already perceive all this as the cost of covering human rights violations in Chechnya and the reaction of the head of Chechnya to criticism”, - commented the journalist.
She suggests that the accusations against her are connected with the support of the Yangulbayev family since 2017, which Kadyrov considers terrorists. According to Dozhd*, the head of Chechnya has repeatedly said that there is no fundamental difference between terrorists and accomplices of terrorists. One of the statements said the following: "We have always destroyed terrorists and their accomplices, between whom there is no difference, and we will continue to do so with them." A few days earlier, Kadyrov called the Dozhd TV channel*, journalist Yelena Milashina, and human rights activist Igor Kalyapin “terrorists, accomplices of terrorists.”
At the moment, the ex-judge Saidi Yangulbayev left Russia with his daughter. Earlier, Chechen security forces abducted his wife from a house in Nizhny Novgorod - she is suspected of fraud and attacking a police officer after being detained. Chechen authorities are looking for sons. Meanwhile, the former federal judge has been stripped of his immunity , and Yangulbaev called the unanimous decision of the board unfounded.
Against the backdrop of recent events in Chechnya and "special relations that have developed between the federal government and the head of the republic," a decision was made to leave the journalist.
“My editor-in-chief and my rather high-ranking sources insist on this, who say that now the threat to my personal safety is high, so I will listen to them, although I really don’t like it,”, - Milashina said in an interview with Dozhd*.
* - entered by the Ministry of Justice in the register of media-foreign agents.