The presidential administration instructed state and pro-government media not to cover crimes committed by war participants after returning from the front. This was reported by Meduza with reference to two unnamed employees of such publications.
“Crime always gives good traffic, and mention of SVO in the headline warms up the audience and makes the news more clickable,” said one of the journalists’ interlocutors. Some pro-government publications, Moskovsky Komsomolets and Komsomolskaya Pravda, have not previously written about such stories themselves, notes Meduza.
According to the Agency’s estimates, by October 2023, war participants who returned home will be accused in the murder of more than 20 people. Most of these and other crimes are committed by prisoners who were recruited in the colonies into the ranks of the Wagner PMC in exchange for a pardon for six months of service.
