The country's largest online book retailer, Ozon.ru, denied Tuesday that it had refused to sell a history of the Federal Security Service after the FSB started investigating the book’s publishers.
The book's editor, Dmitry Litvinov, wrote on his LiveJournal blog that he had obtained an e-mail from Ozon.ru, which said that it had pulled the book after determining that it “posed risks for the company” in connection with the FSB check.
Ozon.ru denied the claim, providing a direct link to the page where the book could be purchased, Gazeta.ru reported. The book could not be found through a search at Ozon.ru on Tuesday afternoon, but appeared in search results later that day, listed as “not in stock.”
The book, "The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia's Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB," by journalists Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, came out in English last year and was released in Russia this summer.
Last week, the FSB requested “data on the people who ordered the book printed” from the printing house. No explanation was given for the request.
The publisher, Alpina Business Books, is part of Sanoma Independent Media, which publishes The Moscow Times.