Pressure at top Russian daily triggers walkout

The entire politics desk of one of Russia’s top daily newspapers, Kommersant, quit on Monday in protest over censorship after two veteran reporters were fired. The walkout at the newspaper controlled by pro-Kremlin tycoon Alisher Usmanov is a rare protest in the Russian media industry where nearly all print outlets toe the government line. Ivan Safronov and Maxim Ivanov, both of whom worked for a decade at the newspaper, last month wrote an article saying Valentina Matvienko, speaker of the Russian parliament’s upper house, could be replaced by Sergei Naryshkin, head of the SVR intelligence service. Kommersant editor-in-chief Vladimir Zhelonkin said the reporters had been sacked because they violated “journalistic standards”.  Earlier Monday, deputy editor Gleb Cherkasov said he and another ten journalists -- who make up Kommersant’s political desk -- quit in solidarity after the management forced the two reporters to resign.