Content
Official position/function in relation to the conflict
Fontanka is an independent internet outlet based in St. Petersburg. It was created in 2000 by reporters from the St. Petersburg Agency for Investigative Journalism (AZHUR-Media), which published materials about the connections of officials of the St. Petersburg mayor’s office (including Putin) with the criminals. One of the founders of Fontanka, Andrei Konstantinov, is the author of the Gangster Petersburg book series. Fontanka.ru is undoubtedly the most deserved and well-known regional investigative media in Russia. It was Fontanka that first reported about Wagner private military company in October 2015. It also found out that the Wagner PMC militants are fighting in Luhansk region.
Fontanka.ru also investigates in detail the secret businesses of Yevgeny Prigozhin (see the corresponding item above), the activities of the “troll factory” and the “media factory,” and exposes fakes of propagandist media.
Fontanka manages to maintain relative institutional independence: the founders did not allow its transfer to the control of state structures. In 2019, AZHUR-Media, which owns the outlet, came under the control of businessman Viktor Shkulev.
Interests/goals in the conflict region
Fontanka has no specific interests in the region. It considers its mission to deliver comprehensive information to the audience.
Actions regarding the conflict region
Examples of high-profile investigations are reporting about the leaders of the so-called “DPR/ LPR”, about the participation of Russian mercenaries in hostilities on the side of the separatists (read here and here), about Yevgeny Prigozhin and his secret financing of trolls and pro-Russian militants, a series of publications about the participation of Wagner PMC militants in the military conflict in Donbas and in Syria (read here and here).