The Russian Foreign Ministry did not extend the visa of Javier Colas, a correspondent for the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, the publication itself reports.
On the evening of March 19, a Russian official, whose name the newspaper does not name, demanded that the correspondent leave Russia within 24 hours. “If you don’t leave before your visa expires, you’ll be in trouble,” he told Kolas.
“After 12 years of working in Moscow, the Russian authorities at the last minute refused to extend my journalist visa, and I had only 24 hours to leave the country,” the correspondent wrote.
El Mundo adds that before his forced departure, Kolas was visited by police officers who warned him to stop covering the actions of relatives of mobilized Russians.
In 2014, Kolas covered the annexation of Crimea and the military actions in Donbass. In February 2024, the journalist published the book “Putinistan”, dedicated to the modern history of Russia. In it, the correspondent called the war a “crusade to destroy Ukraine.”