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Russian journalists in exile visit Detroit

By and FOX 2 Staff
Published  August 8, 2023 5:33pm EDT
Russia-Ukraine
FOX 2 Detroit

Exiled journalists from Russia arrive in Detroit

Journalists from Russia, who were forced to flee their country while trying to report the truth, visited Detroit this week and gave us an idea of what life was like for them as reporters in Russia.

DETROIT (FOX 2) - Independent journalists from Russia have had to flee their country to report the truth 18 months since Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine started.

Among them is Maksim Kurnikov, who visited FOX 2 this week. He sat inside the studio as Amy Lange and Brandon Hudson anchored Live at 11 and gave us his take on what life was really like for journalists in Russia.

"We left Russia because all our media - most of our media was closed - we can't work in Russia," Kurnikov said.

A year and a half since Putin ordered his nation to invade Ukraine, censorship has taken over. So much so, they can't even call the invasion a war.

"Now, censorship in Russia is like a totalitarian country because you can't even say the word war. You can't call this war a war, you can go to prison for seven years," he said.

Kurnikov was the editor-in-chief of Echo Moscow and was on air when the government shut them down in March 2022. He and other journalists had to leave and now live in Berlin and is broadcasting from there. Had he stayed, he says life would be much different.

"In my case, I think I had two ways: one way is prison - and the second way is being mobilized. I'm an officer in the reserve so I think they could take me to the army and I don't want to invade Ukraine," Kurnikov said.

He and other journalists arrived in Detroit and are sponsored by the U.S. Embassy Moscow and hosted by Global Ties Detroit in partnership with the state department. The truth, they say, is a global search and so is the denial.

"We see it even in the U.S., many people to not want to know the truth. They want to hear something that will...prove that they are right. In Russia, it's the same. Many people do not want to hear the truth, they want to hide in the information that makes their life comfortable," he said. "We see it and that was rather disappointing for us and I think very dangerous for democracy all over the world."

He says this is a cautionary tale that our countries share in the war on truth and information.