The Russian Union of Journalists (俄羅斯記者協會), or RUJ, is Russia’s largest professional association of media workers. It traces its origins to the Russian Union of Soviet Journalists, established at a congress in Moscow on November 13, 1918. The union in its current form was founded in 1992, according to Novaya Gazeta Europe. The paper reported in 2023 that RUJ chairman Vladimir Solovyov sat on the presidential Human Rights Council and advised the director general of the state channel Rossiya 1. The RUJ was a founding member of the presidium of the Belt and Road Journalists Network, a platform led by the official All-China Journalists Association (中華全國新聞工作者協會), or ACJA. At the network’s 2023 forum in Beijing, Solovyov called partnership with the ACJA “one key area of work.” He also said Russian and Chinese journalists were jointly “curbing the dissemination of false information.” In February 2023, the International Federation of Journalists suspended the RUJ over its creation of branches in annexed Ukrainian territories. Russia’s justice ministry registry lists an RUJ branch for Zaporizhzhia based in occupied Melitopol. Solovyov said at the time that the union had “big plans” for international cooperation outside the federation. On May 7, 2026, the federation’s congress in Paris formally expelled the RUJ.