The publication “Support Service”, banned in Russia, announced its closure

The publication “Support Service”, launched in Latvia by Russian journalists, announced its closure. The editors talked about the war in Ukraine; in Russia, the authorities included him in the list of so-called undesirable organizations.

The “Support Service” was opened in June 2022 by media managers Ilya Krasilshchik and Alexander Polivanov who left Russia. Between a quarter and half of the team were Ukrainian journalists. In addition to journalism, the project raises money for charity and provides assistance to victims of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and government pressure on activists and journalists inside Russia.

The publication has already announced a critical lack of money for the editorial staff and has made cuts. “More recently, we were looking for money for our work and said that we needed to hold out a little until the next grants,” the closure message says. “Unfortunately, our calculation did not come true, because we did not receive these grants.”

“We are kind of like a Russian project, although half of us are Ukrainians. For donors, it’s like between programs – neither Russians nor Ukrainians,” told Inker for the “Agency” publication.

• More than a thousand journalists have left Russia since the 2022 invasion began. In 2022-2023 alone, 93 editorial offices of media employees who left worked abroad, 34 projects were launched from scratch, – it was said in the JX Fund report.
• On April 1, another editorial office of the new media, Astra, announced that it would stop working. The publication later reported that he managed to find money to continue his work.