Fake news scandals hit Russian independent media

One of the biggest scandals to hit Russian independent media in years has emerged over the last week: a journalist who wrote about the war was accused of falsification and making up material. Almost every publication that worked with her rushed to take down her work and apologize to their readers.

• The journalist wrote under the name Asiya Nesoyeva, (a pseudonym for a 21-year old from Tatarstan, whose real name is Jamilia Sadriyeva) has published more than 30 exclusive stories as a freelancer with Russian independent media outlets since the start of the war (The Bell has not worked with her). She reported on the alleged execution of a Russian conscript who refused to go to the front, how women in a Tatar village apparently hid the last man in their community from recruitment officers and published the supposed final words of Russian soldiers to their families and friends before they died. On three occasions, Nesoyeva was nominated by the “Editorial Board”, a project that recognises independent Russian language reporting, for the best reportage of the month.
• At the start of 2025, several independent media outlets that worked with Nesoyeva quietly started removing her articles from their sites. The falsifications became public knowledge after they were reported by journalist Oleg Kashin. Only then did editors start publicly acknowledging that they had deleted them, either due to falsifications or because the journalist was unable to provide necessary fact-checking materials. At least five publications — Kholod, Meduza, Novaya Gazeta Europe, Ostorozhno Novosti and Ideal.Realii — deleted texts.
• Another publication, Important Stories, did not remove the journalist’s work and kept online the report about the executed conscript. In an official statement, its editors said they were sure of the accuracy of the story, saying they had screenshots of Nesoyeva’s correspondence with relatives of the dead soldier, and that other media outlets have confirmed the story. The outlet added that they worked with Nesoyeva as an intern and that she had pitched other stories that were rejected because they could not be properly fact-checked.  
• It’s still unclear why Nesoyeva wrote fake news in the first place. The journalist herself has given mixed answers. In one interview she saidthat she was “trolling”. In another, she denied inventing anything and said she had written the truth. In a third, she claimed that she changedonly some minor details, not the key subject matter.

Why the world should care:

The Nesoyeva saga clearly damages the reputation of Russia’s independent media, especially outlets that specialize in human stories of the war and how it is changing Russian society. However, it is unreasonable to collate this with some kind of systemic crisis in the profession — similar issues have beset the New York Times and Der Spiegel. We can only hope that fact-checking standards will get even stricter in response.