During my 10 years as a Moscow-based journalist, I struggled to imagine how and when I would eventually leave Russia.

Half Russian myself, I had moved there in 2013, keen to learn more and report on a country that I felt was often misunderstood by many in the West.

In the end, the decision was made for me last month when a representative of Russia’s foreign ministry called to tell me that my visa would not be renewed and I had six days to leave.

The decision, I was told, had been taken by the “relevant authorities,” a term widely used to refer to the security services.

After POLITICO published a news story on my expulsion, I received a message from a fellow journalist wishing me luck.

“The same thing happened to me,” they wrote.

In the days since, other colleagues have shared their stories about their de facto expulsions from Russia. Most have deep ties to Russia and speak the language fluently.

Taken together, their cases illustrate a worrying trend: Journalists from Western countries are slowly being squeezed out of Russia, as the Kremlin cracks down on the last few independent voices covering the domestic impact of the war in Ukraine ahead of a presidential election next year.

“It is a way of setting the tone,” Alexander Baunov, a former Russian diplomat, now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, told me.

“Otherwise the Western press corps might think they are free to do as they please. The point is to have them ponder every phrase, weigh their every word.”

As Russian tanks lined up on the road to Kyiv in February 2022, back home the Kremlin was launching a second assault: on the country’s independent media.

First, government censor Roskomnadzor blocked online access to the handful of critical outlets still operating.

As Russian tanks lined up on the road to Kyiv in February 2022, back home the Kremlin was launching an assault on the country’s independent media Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images

“It is the Swiss way of hoping that something would change and a miracle would happen,” she said. “Compared to other countries, normally Swiss journalists are the last ones to get into trouble.”

Another journalist, who requested anonymity to speak freely, recalled being summoned by a Russian official for a “comradely” meeting.

“The tone was jokey, friendly, theatrical at times,” the journalist told me.

During what the journalist compared to an “agitprop lecture,” the official argued that any inconveniences faced by European journalists in Russia simply mirrored those experienced by Russians in Europe.

“The person insisted that it has nothing to do with what we write about Russia, and that the authorities would never get involved in editorial stuff.”

But then the journalist was asked why, if they regularly traveled to Ukraine, they even needed Russian accreditation. Considering their absences, one could suspect the journalist of being a spy.

“It could have been a threat, maybe not, you never know in these talks,” the journalist told me. “The person was smiling.”

?lthough they did eventually get their documents, they are no longer in Russia. “I definitely felt unsafe,” the journalist said. “It’s not worth the risk.”

In the case of one French journalist, their employment status became the reason for their ousting.

Formally, a journalist can only obtain accreditation on behalf of a single publication, and only staff journalists are allowed to work in Russia. But for years the Russian authorities have tacitly accepted the reality of a media industry in which freelance journalists have to work for several publications at the same time.

The French journalist, who asked not to be named, worked for several media outlets from Moscow for more than four years. A few months after the full-scale invasion, they moved away from Russia, but frequently traveled back and forth.

Five days before their accreditation was due to expire this summer their foreign ministry handler called and, in a conversation eerily similar to mine, told them that the Federal Migration Service had refused to issue a visa. No further explanation would be given, the handler said, in accordance with “international law.”

Arja Paananen accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of displaying “the doublethink of an autocratic leader in the style of George Orwell’s novel ‘1984’”