Silence from the White House
Alsu Kurmasheva is a reporter for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). She is a dual citizen of the United States and Russia.
Kurmasheva is based in Prague. She returned to Russia because of a family emergency in May. She has been working with RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir Service. She was temporarily detained while waiting for a return flight on June 2 at Kazan airport. Her U.S. and Russian passports were confiscated and she was not allowed to leave Russia. She has been there ever since.
On Wednesday, she was waiting for her passports to be returned to her when a charge against her was announced. She is charged with failure to register as a foreign agent. This is a designation that Russia requires of any organization or individual that Russia believes to receive foreign funding. Russia uses this requirement to target journalists and others who speak out against the Kremlin. RFE/RL is a U.S. government-funded media company.
Tatar-Inform, a Russian news outlet, reported that Russian authorities are accusing Kurmasheva of “conducting a targeted collection of military information about Russian activities via the Internet in order to transmit information to foreign sources.” NBC News has not been able to verify this claim.
