The editor-in-chief of the popular Russian news website Lenta.ru was relieved of her post on Wednesday, followed by 39 members of the editorial staff who signed their discharge applications in solidarity with their chief.

      Galina Timchenko has been replaced with Alexey Goreslavsky, the media holding’s deputy director general of communications, according to a brief statement posted on the publication’s website. Goreslavsky has a reputation as a pro-Kremlin figure.

      That decision was taken by Alexander Mamut, owner of the united company Afisha-Rambler-SUP that owns Lenta.ru, according to the statement. It came shortly after Russia's telecoms watchdog Roscomnadzor had put an interview with one of the Ukrainian Maidan radical activists taken by Lenta.ru journalist into the Russian Internet blacklist.

      On March 13, Lenta.ru's general director, Olga Minder, was also relieved of her post. She is expected to be replaced with Andrey Solomennik, the chief financial executive and general director of some projects from the Afisha-Rambler-SUP united company. Both Timchenko and Minder were discharged without any explanations.

      About 70 Lenta.ru journalists also signed an open letter which says the replacement is an attempt to put pressure on an independent media outlet in breach of Russian law, “not an ordinary reshuffle.”

      Timchenko had worked for Lenta.ru since it was founded in 1999, and was appointed editor-in-chief about ten years ago.