Maria Zholobova

Maria Viktorovna Zholobova (born 1989) is a Russian investigative journalist. She is a journalist for the publication Important Stories. She is the co-founder and former journalist for the publication Proekt. She is the former presenter and writer of the program “Fake News” on the TV Rain channel.

Education She received a master's degree from the Institute of Journalism and Literary Creativity in Moscow.

Career She started working in the newspaper "Kommersant", where she was a news editor.

Later, she worked at Esquire and Slon (Republic).

Investigative stories In August 2017, TV Rain aired the first episode of the Piterskie series, which told the story of Russian businessman and Putin acquaintance Ilya Traber and his alleged ties to crime. In particular, the episode about Traber spoke of the "so-called king of gangster Petersburg." Zholobova was one of the authors of the episode. In 2017, a criminal case was opened in Russia for slander against Traber, in which Zholobova was a witness. On June 29, 2021, Russian police searched her apartment in Moscow, seizing computers, phones, memory cards, and SIM cards, and then took her in for questioning. The day before the searches, the publication of Zholobova's investigation into the alleged corruption schemes of Vladimir Kolokoltsev, the Minister of Internal Affairs of Russia, was announced. Human rights organizations International Federation of Journalists, Committee to Protect Journalists, European Federation of Journalists, Journalists and Media Workers Union, Women in Journalism Coalition and Amnesty International condemned the searches.

On July 15, 2021, the Russian Prosecutor's Office declared Proekt an "undesirable organization." Zholobova then left for Tbilisi, Georgia.