Russian journalist Antonina Favorskaya, who extensively covered the trials of late dissident Alexei Navalny, has been detained over alleged links to his banned Anti-Corruption Foundation, a Moscow court said on Friday.
Both Favorskaya's outlet SotaVision as well as Navalny's spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh have rejected the accusations, saying they are a pretext by Russian authorities to silence the journalist, who faces six years in prison after being arrested on Wednesday.
Unlike stated in the indictment, Favorskaya never published materials for Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, which has been classified as an "extremist organization" in Russia, Yarmysh wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
"A journalist is being accused for her journalistic activity," she added. "This is not a surprise, but what a darkness."
Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago, Moscow has been increasingly cracking down on critical domestic voices.
According to SotaVision, Favorskaya covered almost all of the trials brought against Navalny even following his imprisonment in 2021.
Russia's most prominent dissident died in a Siberian prison on February 16. The circumstances of his death at the remote penal colony have yet to be clarified. Many Putin critics and Western countries hold the Kremlin responsible.
Favorskaya has also visited his grave at a Moscow cemetery several times, reporting about crowds of people continuing to lay flowers days after the funeral.
She was detained by police for a first time after one of those visits in a café on March 17, and put in an arrest cell for 10 days over alleged disobedience towards the police.
On the day of her scheduled release, she was detained again - this time over alleged links to Navalny's banned organization.
Several of Favorskaya's colleagues and a journalist working for another outlet critical of the Kremlin have also been arrested.
The latter later said he had been beaten by security forces and threatened with sexual violence, according to Russian human rights group OVD-Info.