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GUARDIAN: "Faithful to my profession to the end: Russian journalists endure under Putin's onslaught"

Mikhail Afanasyev wants your letters.

The Russian journalist from Abakan in Siberia was jailed last year for writing about a small group of national guardsmen who had refused to fight in Ukraine. But Afanasyev remains defiant, while local supporters crowdfund thousands of dollars to pay off his legal fines.

"It is the duty of every person to expand the horizon of freedom by his actions, so that light pours in and overcomes the darkness," Afanasyev wrote from pre-trial detention in a letter to his supporters this month.

"I really ask you to write to me, very much! It helps me a lot ... I just want to be a journalist, faithful to my profession to the end and defend its values."

Independent Russian journalism could have buckled and collapsed over the past year, under the weight of new laws criminalising "fake news" and references to war that seem to outlaw most honest reporting.

Criminal cases are common, with another journalist, Maria Ponomarenko, sentenced to six years in prison this week for a post about the bombing of the Mariupol drama theatre. "No totalitarian regime seems as strong as it does before the collapse," she said in her final speech in court.

A constellation of outlets on the ground, many of them opened after the war began, continue to provide insight into the darkest corners of Russia.

When a missile struck a technical college being used by Russian soldiers in east Ukraine on New Year's Day, Russian media quickly managed to establish that the death toll was higher than officially admitted, despite pressure on relatives to stay quiet.

"The families are scared. They have the most to lose [by speaking out]," said one local journalist who had covered funerals following the strike. "It is the hardest story I have ever covered."

Others have chosen the safer option of exile. Thousands of journalists have left Russia during the war, part of a huge exodus of hundreds of thousands of Russians who have fled the country over the past year.

Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, more than 900,000 Russian citizens and residents are estimated to have left Russia.

But Vladimir Putin does not care about that.

Putin stubbornly wants to continue his cruel and inhumane war - in a stupid and childish manner.

As far as Vladimir is concerned, all Russian people can leave the country.

Putin just wants to wage war - even if Russia falls apart.