[News] Sarah Rainsford: My last despatch before Russian expulsion

[Agent47]

 

 

I'm writing this in the middle of the night at my kitchen table in Moscow, looking over towards the dim red stars and golden domes of the Kremlin. But by the time you read it I'll be on my way back to England, expelled from Russia as a national security threat.

After more than 20 years reporting from Moscow, I still can't believe it.

I suspected I was being singled out around a year ago when the Russian foreign ministry started issuing me short-term visas. Even those would be approved at the last minute.

At one point I was told I'd been given my last-ever visa, before the official claimed she'd been mistaken.

But on 10 August I was taken aside at passport control at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport and told I'd been barred from Russia by the FSB security service.

The officer reading out the order had all the words, but no explanation.

"Sarah Elizabeth," - he kept using my middle name - "You are being refused entry to the Russian Federation - indefinitely. This is for the protection of the security of Russia," he clarified and then said I was being deported.

I told him I was a journalist: "Do I look like a threat?"

"We're just the implementers," the border guard repeated multiple times. "Ask the FSB."
I'd flown into Moscow that morning from Belarus where I'd been reporting on the suppression of mass protests against Alexander Lukashenko.

Vladimir Putin's close ally was hosting his annual giant "conversation" with the press and I'd used the chance to question how he could possibly stay on as president after the torture and imprisonment of peaceful protesters.
First, he slammed me as a Western propagandist, then his loyal supporters rounded on me, live on Belarusian television.

That night, as we edited the exchange into our report, the foreign ministry back in Russia announced new sanctions against the UK: a group of unnamed British citizens were accused of engaging in "anti-Russian activity".

It was Moscow's delayed response to UK sanctions over human rights abuses in Chechnya and high-level corruption. With the latest visa in my passport close to expiring, I felt nervous.

A few hours later, my colleagues cleared the border in Moscow as usual but I was stopped.

I was eventually left to wander freely in the departures hall, though without my passport, as others negotiated frantically to halt my deportation.

I was sure they'd fail: the order against me came from the powerful FSB.

That's why I'd signed the form that said I understood I'd be breaking the law if I entered Russia ever again. I'd protested, but I had no choice.

At one point, I sat on a broken airport bench and recorded my feelings, crying into the camera.

Then suddenly, 12 hours after landing, I got a call telling me I could cross the border - just once, to pack up my life in Moscow.