Putin Says Nobel Prize Isn’t Legal ‘Shield’ for Russian Editor
- Russian leader defends crackdown on media ‘foreign agents’
- Putin says Novaya Gazeta editor must obey Russian law
Dmitry Muratov meets with reporters outside the newspaper's office in Moscow on Oct. 8, 2021.
Photographer: Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP via Getty Images
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If Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov thought winning the Nobel Peace Prize may protect him against a sweeping Kremlin crackdown on media it considers “foreign agents,” then President Vladimir Putin offered a sobering warning Wednesday.
“If he doesn’t violate Russian law, and if he doesn’t give a reason to be declared a foreign agent, then he won’t be,” Putin told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble in an interview at Russian Energy Week in Moscow, when asked if the editor-in-chief of the independent Novaya Gazeta, would avoid being named a “foreign agent” after winning the Nobel.