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Estonian police have detained former Sputnik Meedia employees Elena Cherysheva and Mati-Dmitry Terestal the day before, RIA Novosti reports. They are suspected of violating international sanctions. According to their colleagues, they have not been able to contact the detainees since yesterday.
Sputnik Meedia was forced to suspend its operations a month ago. Cherysheva, editor-in-chief of the media, said that the decision was made under pressure from the authorities. The employees were suspected of money laundering, terrorist financing, and even they illegal sale of alcohol.
Now Cherysheva and Terestal are suspected of allegedly transferring money received from Russia to a person against whom sanctions have been imposed. They also continued to operate Sputnik Meedia even after the sanctions were imposed, the procecution office claims.
The day before, the police raided the journalists' residences with a search, which went on for eight hours. After that, the journalists did not get in touch.
Last February, ex-employees of the editorial office of Sputnik Estonia, who were forced to stop its activities due to pressure and threats from Estonian law enforcement officers, created a new imedia - Sputnik Meedia. It continued the work of Sputnik Estonia.
The Estonian edition of Sputnik ceased to exist on the first day of 2020, journalists were out of work for about a year.
Russkiy Mir
As in the previous media, the editorial policy of the journalistic team was aimed at friendship between Estonia and Russia, Sputnik Meedia was not part of the Rossiya Segodnya media holding and is in no way connected with it. He received financial support from independent sources.
