Moscow orders arrest of Rai correspondents Battistini and Traini: "They entered Kursk illegally"

"The Leninsky District Court of Kursk has granted the motion of the regional office of the Russian border service to issue an arrest warrant for Italian journalists Simone Traini and Stefania Battistini who illegally entered Russia from Ukraine to film a TV report on the situation in Ukraine ," the press service of the Kursk region judiciary reported, as reported by Interfax. The two journalists are currently outside Russia.

" TV cameraman Simone Traini and journalist Stefania Battistini, together with several unidentified persons, entered the Russian Federation from Ukrainian territory with the intention of filming a television report on the invasion of the Sudzha district in the Kursk region by Ukrainian armed units with the help of tanks, artillery and light vehicles, armored vehicles on August 6, 2024," the press service of the judiciary said, the Interfax news agency wrote.

"Traini and Battistini, after illegally crossing the Russian border, went to Sudzha, in the Kursk region, in a transport vehicle of Ukrainian armed units. The two Italian journalists included in the wanted lists" of Russia, "are accused of crossing the Russian state border. The judge has ordered their pre-trial detention ", the note continued. "They will be taken into custody on the day they are arrested on Russian territory or extradited to Russia, before a possible trial . The court's decision has not yet come into force and can be appealed", it concludes.

The position of Usigrai, the union of RAI journalists, was immediate, defining «the Russian request for extradition and the arrest order as an unacceptable provocation».

Usigrai in turn calls for "a unanimous position from the government against this latest intimidation of Italian journalists. We express all our concern for the contours that this affair is taking, we renew our full solidarity with our colleagues at Tg1 and we hope that the ambassador of the Russian Federation in Italy will be urgently summoned to clarify our country's position in protecting journalistic work and freedom of information".