Roman Anin. Photo: IStories
Roman Anin, the founder and former editor-in-chief of independent investigative news outlet IStories, has been stripped of his Russian citizenship, state-owned news agency TASS reported on Tuesday.
Anin had his citizenship revoked by the Yaroslavl region Interior Ministry based on his March conviction for spreading what the authorities deemed “false information” about the Russian military, TASS wrote.
Born in Moldova, Anin received Russian citizenship in 2006, and was registered as living in the central Russian city of Yaroslavl until 2024, though he in fact left Russia in 2021.
Anin began his journalism career in 2006 at Novaya Gazeta, eventually moving to the newspaper’s investigative unit, where he uncovered numerous cases of corruption and cronyism in military, political and business circles. He launched IStories alongside other prominent investigative reporters in 2020.
IStories ceased operations in Russia a year later after the outlet and several of its journalists were declared “foreign agents”. In March 2022, IStories was declared an “undesirable” organisation, effectively making it a criminal offence for anybody in Russia to collaborate with the outlet.
