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Agentura. Ru (Russian: Агентура.Ру) is a Russian web-site founded in 2000 as internet-community of journalists who cover terrorism, and Intelligence agencies. Since 2000 by 2006 web-site was supported by ISP Relcom, since 2006 Agentura.Ru is the voluntary project.

Agentura. Ru is considered one of most respectable sources on Russian secret services. Editor of Agentura. Ru is Andrei Soldatov, deputy editor Irina Borogan.

Agentura. Ru has been reported and featured in the New York Times, the Moscow Times, the Washington Post, Online Journalism Review, Le Monde, The Christian Science Monitor, CNN, Federation of American Scientists, BBC, as well in websites of The Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, Center for Defence Information, The Library of Congress, Cambridge Security Programme. Agentura. Ru is quoted by The New York Times as "A Web Site That Came in From the Cold to Unveil Russian Secrets".

Committee to Protect Journalists(CPJ) in its annual report "Attacks on the press 2003" quoted Agentura. Ru:

"While some Russian newspapers like the Moscow-based twice-weekly Novaya Gazeta have developed a strong tradition of exposing government abuses and continue to do so, others have been dissuaded after seeing colleagues murdered, beaten, prosecuted, and fined. Journalists who have opted for publishing on the Internet-like Andrei Soldatov, who runs the Web site Agentura.ru and specializes in writing about Russia's powerful security services-have been detained and questioned by security forces angered by articles about their activities".

In September 2005 Agentura. Ru Studies and Research Centre / ASRC /, research department of Agentura. Ru project, has published the research paper “Terrorism prevention in Russia: one year after Beslan” (English). Short version of it has been republished in RUSI/Jane's Homeland Security and Resilience Monitor. On June 2006 Agentura. Ru Studies and Research Centre prepared the report "Al Qaeda. The role in the North Caucasus". First published in Novaya Gazeta.

Since January 2006 Agentura. Ru has cooperation with Novaya Gazeta covering intelligence and terrorism issues.

In June 2008 The Moscow Times has written on Agentura.Ru in article "Journalist Enjoying A Security Monopoly"

" Agentura.ru has developed into an information and analytical hub, updated on a daily basis and covering developments related to security services in Russia and the former Soviet Union and terrorist groups worldwide. It also publishes articles on the history and practices of foreign security agencies and issues like media and legislative oversight of security services".

Ceasing of cooperation with Novaya Gazeta

On November 12, 2008, Andrei Soldatov’s employer Novaya Gazeta fired him and Agentura.ru colleague Irina Borogan. In press release, Soldatov and Borogan said that Novaya Gazeta had ceased its collaboration with Agentura.ru without explanation. ‘They even removed our banner from their website,’ said Soldatov, noted by Maria Eismont in Index on Censorship on November 27). The paper’s editors had not met with them; all information came from the personnel department.

As a result of this action, the statement continued, “’Novaya gazeta,’ one of the few independent publications in the country in fact is ceasing to cover the special services and publish investigations [on them and] ‘both the suddenness and the form in which the separation happened gives reason to suppose that it was taken not for purely economic reasons”. reads the statement on Agentura.ru, encouraging readers to guess which of the recently published stories could be the real reason. One of Agentura’s last articles for Novaya Gazeta focused on the former FSB officer Pavel Ryaguzov, who is currently facing prosecution in the Anna Politkovskaya murder trial.

Novaya Gazeta’s deputy editor-in-chief Sergei Sokolov denies to Index on Censorship any politics behinds the firing. ‘Job cuts, including some of the star writers, are a result of the investors’ decision to cut the funding of the paper. This has nothing to do with professional performance.’ Sokolov added that the job cuts ‘will certainly affect the paper, but not catastrophically’. He said that the newspaper will continue to monitor the secret services, ‘like we always did, even before collaborating with Agentura’. Sokolov added that the coverage of Politkovsakya’s murder case, which he is overseeing himself, will not be affected.

Roman Shleinov, head of the investigations unit at Novaya Gazeta, said to Index on Censorship the paper will continue to do investigations although now there will be less specialisation and journalists will be forced to write on a much wider range of issues. ‘Maybe the job cuts will push the remaining staff to work harder,’ he said. But Shleinov was in general quite pessimistic: ‘It seems that things will get worse.’

References

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