Police raid Moscow newsroom in connection with billionaire's defamation lawsuit

Police officers raided the Moscow newsroom of the media outlet Rosbalt on Thursday, seizing three computer processing units that contain information about the “Young Shakro” case, Rosbalt Moscow editor Nikolai Ulyanov told the news agency Interfax.

Officers examined all the computers in Rosbalt’s newsroom, powering on all devices in the office and searching each CPU for the word “Shakro.” Ulyanov says the three seized computers contained files mentioning this name.

The seized computers belong to Ulyanov, journalist Alexander Shvarev, and Shvarev’s editor. Ulyanov and Shvarev have been summoned for questioning next week.

The raid on Rosbalt’s Moscow office is connected to a defamation lawsuit by the billionaire Alisher Usmanov, who won a different defamation case last December against a website that claimed he has alleged ties to Zakhariy Kalashov. Ulyanov says no one on his news team has written anything other than news briefs about Usmanov in recent memory.