At least five local Russian media have removed lists of names from their website in recent days, according to an inventory of de Volkskrant† The removal of these lists is the result of a recent court ruling in Svetlogorsk in the Kaliningrad region. He considers publishing the names in violation of state secrecy. Deaths from the Krasnoyark, Omsk, Chelyabinsk and Volgograd regions are no longer visible. Earlier this month, dozens of deaths were reported on local websites.
“This is a forced measure for us,” writes the editors of one of the media on its website. “Our apologies to the mothers and fathers, wives and children, relatives and friends of the servicemen who died during the special military operation in Ukraine.”
Regional media sometimes make a notice or a short posthumous message when a soldier from their area has died and been buried. Some media had bundled these posthumously. Partly on the basis of these overviews, the independent Russian website media zone established that at least 3,211 Russian soldiers have now been killed in Ukraine. The last official number released by the Russian government – at the end of March – is 1,351. The websites of the regional media can also be visited from the Netherlands. Some national Russian state media has been blocked in European countries.
Not long after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, local media began listing the dead “children of the region,” as the often-young soldiers are called. However, according to the Russian judge, the publication of this type of personal data is contrary to the law on state secrecy. The judge gave his verdict on posthumous articles that had appeared on the website 60.RU.
According to the judge, the published information should not be distributed on the territory of the Russian Federation. The decision is effective immediately. To avoid prosecution or shutdown, other regional websites followed suit. They removed their statements on Wednesday after the ruling was made public via a press release. For example, the editors of the website NGS24.RU say they were forced to remove the ‘memory page’ for soldiers from the area around the Siberian city of Krasnoyark who died during a special operation in Ukraine.
In 1995, then-President Yeltsin signed a decree making the names of the dead in wartime a state secret. Current President Putin expanded the decree to include the names of those killed “in peacetime while conducting special operations.”
In addition, the judge refers to the federal law on personal data. This states that the person in question must give his or her consent for the distribution of his or her personal data – in this case the person in question has died. Several of the websites that have now removed their posthumously said they base their information about the dead on official sources.
Saturday in the Volkskrant: At least thousands of Russian soldiers have already died in Ukraine. What do we know about them?