You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service.

This is Hard Talk with me, Sarah Montague.

Thanks for downloading this edition of the programme, and I hope you enjoy it.

Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service. I'm Sarah Montague.

My guest today made her name as a journalist on one of Russia's leading news websites.

Galena Timchenko was editor of Lenta.ruh until she was fired. She claims as a result

of pressure from the Kremlin. She left Russia and with some of her former colleagues set up another

news organisation, Medusa in exile in Latvia. It too reaches millions of Russians. But what does her self-imposed exile say about

media freedom in Russia and should she have stayed to defend her journalism there?

Galena Timchenko, welcome to Hard Talk. Thank you so much. Could you have stayed in Russia?

Sure. Sure. But you chose to leave? Why? Yeah. You know, it's a very simple question because

we want to, you know, we left Russia in 2014. It was a very hard year. You know, it was

annexation of Crimea. It was war with Ukraine. And we realized that after my firing,

the Kremlin administration just doesn't allow me to work in my profession.

How do you know that it was the Kremlin behind your fire?

You know, it was obvious because I've heard from my colleagues, maybe a couple times,

that head of inner policy in Kremlin administration, Wichislav Balodin, said,

who is majors in the Internet, in Russian segment of Internet, who is majors in

internet, in Russian segment of internet? Who is majors?

Who is the main figures? And my colleague said,

Lenta is on the top. And he said, okay,

editor-in-chief, editor-in-chief of Lenta

...