Like many journalists in Russia, Elena Milashina is reluctant to talk about her work. In 2006, her close friend and collaborator Anna Politkovskaya was assassinated in Moscow, shot four times in the entry hall to her block of flats.

It was an event that shocked the journalism community and signalled that the climate of mistrust and the suspicion of a free press, encouraged by a Kremlin crackdown on independent media, was reaching a new peak.

Politkovskaya had been reporting closely on the wars in Chechnya, where separatist groups had been fighting unsuccessfully for independence from Russia, since 1994. By 2006 the region was firmly under the control of its Russian-appointed leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, who was operating a large private militia accused of savage brutality.

Though Politkovskaya had been warned by many friends and colleagues that she was in danger, she decided to keep returning. Thomas de Waal, writing at the time of her death, described how she had fearlessly reported “on the bombings, torture camps, abductions and corruption in Moscow’s second campaign in Chechnya.”

He added: “It felt at times that our news from Chechnya came from a remarkable one-woman reporting operation.”

After her death, many of her colleagues left the profession, fearing for their own safety. Others decided to stop reporting from the North Caucausus, where the bloody conflict was still raging.

I'm not interested in writing about flowers. I like to be helpful and find something wrong

But for some women working in the field, her death seemed to have the opposite effect.

Anecdotal evidence suggests there are now more independent female than male reporters covering the post-Soviet conflict zones, from the North Caucasus to eastern Ukraine, and many more women investigating authorities’ abuses and corruption.

Common among these women is a desire to right wrongs and expose the Kremlin’s corrupt policies. “I’m not interested in writing about flowers,” says Milashina. “I like to be helpful and find something wrong – that is my nature. I found the best use of this is journalism.”

Now one of Russia’s leading investigative reporters, Milashina is widely seen as Politkovskaya’s heir, and has described the late journalist as “like a teacher for me”.



Chechnya

A poster on a bullet-riddled wall in Grozny showing Vladimir Putin presenting a medal to the Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov. Photograph: Viktor Drachev/AFP/Getty Images

After Politkovskaya’s murder, Milashina decided to take over her unfinished investigations. They both worked at Novaya Gazeta, one of Russia’s leading independent newspapers, reporting on forced disappearances, torture, arbitrary detentions, executions and the persecution of the families of alleged Islamist insurgents in the North Caucasus.

In the decade since the murder, Milashina has broken a series of important stories, from investigating the murder of Natalia Estemirova, a human rights campaigner in Grozny, to exposés on Kadyrov’s abuse of power.

Last year she published a story about the forced marriage of a Chechen 17-year-old to a local police commander 30 years her senior. Milashina reported that the policeman, a close ally of Kadyrov, had threatened reprisals against the girl’s family if she refused his proposal.

The story prompted outrage when it appeared in Novaya Gazeta, with human rights activists calling for the Kremlin to step in and users of social media openly criticising Kadyrov’s regime. However, the wedding went ahead, with the Chechen leader posting a picture of himself dancing at the party. Milashina was then warned that the Chechen police had “shown an interest in her”.

This was not the first time she had attracted the ire of the authorities. In addition to ongoing threats and pressure from the Chechen authorities, in April 2012 Milashina was beaten outside her home in a Moscow suburb and had her laptop stolen. Though she was convinced the event was linked to her work, the real perpetrators have never been found.

Dagestan

Russian T-80 tanks prepare to fire on the Dagestani village of Karamakhi in 1999. Photograph: AP

Irina Gordienko, who was a young reporter when Politkovskaya was killed, has also decided to ignore the risks and carry on investigating the restive North Caucasus region. She is one of a handful of journalists travelling in and out of the Republic of Dagestan, whose mountains serve as a hideout for groups of local militants with ties to Islamic State.

The police and security services have been in a state of war with various armed groups there for more than a decade, with locals targeted by both sides. Since the early 2000s, militant groups have used apartment blocks and villages to target the police, and the authorities have shelled whole communities in response.

“I can’t abandon these people, that’s why I keep writing about Dagestan. Sometimes there is a hope I can help them,” she says.

In September, Gordienko published a story in Novaya Gazeta about two teenage shepherds apparently killed by the local security services while looking after livestock in the mountains.

Early on 24 August, a neighbour discovered their bodies outside the village, dressed in new clothes and with guns hanging from their shoulders. The police claimed they had eliminated two terrorists who had fired at them.

After investigating the killing, Gordienko concluded it was a set-up. She is now calling for an official investigation in the belief that the police officers decided to kill the young men and present them as militants.

The Orthodox church

Patriarch Kirill poses for a photo at Russia’s Bellingshausen Antarctic station. Photograph: Tass

Svetlana Reiter started her career by looking into the number and plight of homeless children in Russia, and the state of healthcare. “But when you write about sick children,” she explains, “very soon you start asking why there is a shortage of medicine for them.”

Working for popular outlets including Esquire Russia, Lenta.ru and RBC Daily, Reiter investigated inflated government contracts that put up the price of medicines.

Most recently, Reiter, 40, has investigated the relationship between businesses and the Russian Orthodox church.

She exposed the fact that the church’s leader, Patriarch Kirill, ran up a bill of more than 20m roubles (£250,000) during a trip to Latin America in February. According to Reiter’s report, more than half of this money was spent on the patriarch’s trip to Antarctica, where he presided over a service at the only church on the continent and went on a sightseeing trip to see penguins.

Though the wealth of the church is well known, critical articles about the patriarch are rare in Russia: the leader is a powerful political actor and close friend of the president. She faced a wave of abuse after her piece was published, with calls for her to be excommunicated. Fellow journalist Alexander Soldatov, editor of Credo.ru, was forced to leave the country after publishing critical articles.

Reiter, who has two daughters, knows the dangers but the pull to investigate further is too great. “There is always a balance between a common sense and curiosity in our profession. But very often curiosity pushes you forward,” she says.