So you’re that Kozenko guy who left and now writes crap about our Motherland?!” Journalist Andrey Kozenko, who is wanted under the “foreign agent” article, called the people searching for him. Is that safe, and why might someone do it?

“So you’re that Kozenko guy who left and now writes crap about our Motherland?!” BBC journalist Andrey Kozenko, who is wanted under the “foreign agent” article, called the people searching for him. But is that safe? And why might it be necessary?

▶️ What happened

BBC journalist Andrey Kozenko found out that he is wanted under the “foreign agent” article. They were looking for him using two Saratov phone numbers, even though he himself lives in London.

In response, Kozenko decided to call the people searching for him and find out what questions they had for him. The conversation turned out to be remarkable:

So you’re that Kozenko guy who left and now writes crap about our Motherland?!

Have you people lost it or what? I spent 30 years of my life in Saratov. I knew every back alley in the Volzhsky District, I have relatives there, I had my first kiss in Lipki. So what, in your view? I come to work every day and think: what kind of crap should I write about Mother Russia today? Seriously?

Then why did you leave? he asks.

Censorship, I say. You go to an event with Kommersant, you work, you do ten interviews. And then you come back to the newsroom, and they tell you: Andryukha, sorry, but you'd better sit on this story of yours and keep your head down.

Then you should've kept your head down! I swear, there was sympathy in my interlocutor's voice when he said this.

(I involuntarily swore, but apologized right away, please take that into account.) Do you understand, the whole point of my job is precisely to stand out. It hurts, it's bad, it's scary, you just don't want to, but you still get up and stand out, I say.

All right, I continued. Here's why I'm calling, actually. Since you've put me on the wanted list, I want to say that I'm not hiding from you in some shack in the woods. My phone number came up on your end. If you want, I'll give you my address. We can correspond. And call anytime, really. If you're up on Sokolovaya Hill, send it my regards.

We parted quite amicably

▶️ Is it worth calling the investigator at all if you are in a similar situation?

An OVD-Info lawyer answers:

Such a call may be useful if you want to troll the investigator or give him extra work: now he will have to write a report, state who called him, what was said, what the conversation was about, what he learned from it, and so on.

In addition, such a call makes it possible to once again publicize politically motivated persecution by writing a Facebook post afterward and thereby once again highlighting the absurdity of these cases.

What could this lead to? That depends on where the person is. If the person is in a country that does not extradite people on politically motivated charges, then such a call is not particularly dangerous.

But if he lives in a country that may extradite him to Russia, then he definitely should not call. This primarily concerns CIS countries. Otherwise there are risks.

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