Roskomnadzor blocked access to the websites of publications owned by entrepreneur Yevgeny Prigozhin, who arranged a military mutiny, noted “Kommersant”. At the same time, telegram channels reported about the closure of his media holding “Patriot”.
RIA FAN, “Politika Segodnya”, “Ekonomika Segodnya”, “Nevskie Novosti” and “Narodnye Novosti” were all blocked by the RCN. Their sites are listed in Roskomnadzor’s register of banned portals.
In addition, the portal of Patriot media group, which unites all the publications controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin, is inaccessible. However, its site was not included in the Roskomnadzor register.
The St. Petersburg-based publication Rotonda reports that Prigozhin has dissolved his media holding company and closed his “troll factory. The editors of Nevskie Novosti and Politika Segodnya officially announced the closure. About the termination of Prigozhin’s media also reported telegram channel “Rybar”, which, allegedly, financed by the businessman. “Today the employees of the publications were announced that they are unemployed”, the channel writes.
The day before, the social network YaRus, which was financed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, announced the end of work. The company explained the closure by the “unstable political situation”.
The work of “Patriot” holding “completely paralyzed” since May 24, when mercenaries from Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner PMC seized Rostov and threatened to attack Moscow. On that day, law enforcers came with searches to Prigozhin’s offices in St. Petersburg and seized all the equipment. “If you see updates on websites and social networks, it is the initiative of individual teams, there is no centralized management anymore”, one of the employees told The Bell.
As reported by The Bell, after the attempted coup and the alleged move of Prigozhin to Belarus, media assets owned by him began to look for new owners. According to the newspaper, the National Media Group (NMG) of the billionaire and friend of President Vladimir Putin, Yury Kovalchuk, is the most likely contender.
Prigozhin merged his media and the “troll factory” into a single holding company called Patriot in 2019. The businessman also headed the Board of Trustees of the media group, although he had previously denied his relationship to the publications and the “troll factory”.
