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IStories Founder Roman Anin Stripped of Russian Citizenship

The decision is linked to the publication of an investigation by Ekaterina Fomina about the mass shootings of civilians in Ukraine’s Bucha

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Date

23 Dec 2025

IStories Founder Roman Anin Stripped of Russian Citizenship — Photo: IStories

Roman Anin, the publisher and former editor-in-chief of IStories, has been stripped of his Russian citizenship after a Russian court found him guilty of “spreading fake news” about the actions of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine. This was reported by Kommersant and TASS with reference to the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Yaroslavl Oblast (Anin was registered in this region).

“After reviewing the materials collected by the migration department staff of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for Yaroslavl Oblast [...] the previously acquired citizenship of the Russian Federation has been terminated for the citizen born in 1986,” the Ministry of Internal Affairs stated.

It is unknown when exactly the citizenship was annulled.

Anin was a naturalized Russian citizen; he was born and raised in Moldova and received a Russian passport only in 2006.

Roman Anin

For the fourth year now, the Russian Reich has been waging a barbaric war of aggression against Ukraine — wiping entire cities off the face of the earth along with their civilian populations, bombing children's hospitals and shelters where children are hiding, raping women, terrorizing the elderly and the sick, depriving them of heat, water, and light. The very same regime has turned its own country into a real concentration camp: political opponents are poisoned with chemical weapons, others are tortured with electric shocks, attaching wires to their genitals, detainees have their ears cut off, while the “new elite” of FSB officers amuse themselves with the rape of children and the brutal murders of women, whom they sometimes bury alive. And now, this very Reich has announced today that it is stripping me of my citizenship. All I can say about this is “thanks”.

Since October 2023, a law has been in force in Russia that allows a person to be deprived of acquired citizenship for “military fakes,” “discrediting the army,” calls for extremist activity, and so on. At the end of July this year, Putin signed a law under which acquired citizenship can be revoked for virtually any political crime.

In March, a court sentenced Anin and former IStories reporter (now a TV Rain reporter) Ekaterina Fomina in absentia to 8.5 years in a penal colony in a case concerning “fakes” about the Russian Armed Forces. The case was based on three IStories videos — two news overviews by Anin and an investigation by Fomina about the killing of civilians in Bucha. You can read more about this case here.

For the first time, a person was stripped of citizenship in March 2024 for “fakes” about the Russian Armed Forces. Aleksandr Somryakov from Kuban was sentenced to six years in a penal colony for reports about crimes committed by the Russian army in Mariupol and Bucha.

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IStories Founder Roman Anin Stripped of Russian Citizenship

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