Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu says there's a ‘pro-Western oppositionist division’ operating inside Russia and ‘hiding behind media laws’

There’s a “pro-Western oppositionist division” operating inside Russia, says Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu. “Hiding behind [Russia’s] media laws, [this division’s] activists are trying to infiltrate military installations and hunt for relatives and eyewitnesses, they’re slipping into hospitals where our injured and sick are being treated and into cemeteries and funerals and the families of our fallen boys. They’re photographing the entrances and exits of our covert facilities and uploading it to the Internet,” said Shoigu in a speech to the Federation Council. 

The defense minister did not clarify his allegations before adding that “this area requires further legislative regulations.”

According to the website Mediazona, the television network Rossiya 24 aired a report on March 24 about Pskov journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva, who has been accused of justifying terrorism in comments about a bombing of a Federal Security Center building in Arkhangelsk. In the segment, Rossiya 24 also said that Prokopyeva recorded video of a military base in Pskov for the news outlet Radio Svoboda (a Russian-language branch of the U.S.-government-funded organization Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty). The TV network claimed that Prokopyeva could face espionage charges for “selling information about our soldiers.”