Day seventeen of Oleg Roldugin's pre-trial detention closed Sunday with no movement on his case and a May 10 remand hearing now two weeks out. The Novaya Gazeta journalist is held on personal-data charges built from Telegram contacts and source data — the same materials any reporter touches in any newsroom. [1]

The paper followed this charge to Day Sixteen and noted then that the prosecution's theory was less about a specific article than about converting reporting infrastructure into evidence. Sunday confirms the pattern. The court has neither released nor clarified the charge; the May 10 hearing remains the only fixed point. [2][3]

Roldugin's own line from the courtroom — "I don't know which article of mine [...] I'm here for" — has become the case's most cited summary. [1] It is also the operational point. Russian prosecutors do not need to specify a published piece when the act of holding source data on Telegram is itself the offense. The chilling logic is broader than one journalist: every Russian newsroom that uses encrypted messaging now has the same exposure.

May 10 will not deliver freedom. It will deliver a longer remand or a transfer toward indictment. The architecture is built to outlast any single defendant.

-- KATYA VOLKOV, Moscow