Russia has reopened criminal investigations into the deaths of five journalists following an appeal by a media rights group.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) ranks Russia as one of the most dangerous countries for reporters in the world.
It placed the country eighth on its list of countries where journalists are killed regularly and governments fail to solve the crimes. It said 19 journalists have been murdered in Russia since 2000.
The Prosecutor General's Office said it had decided to reopen criminal investigations into five journalist deaths between 2001 and 2005 after receiving new information from the committee.
President Dmitry Medvedev has pledged to get to the bottom of unsolved press murders, including the 2006 killing of Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya, but rights groups say little progress has been made in finding the people who ordered the crimes.
The Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General's Office said in a statement it had reopened criminal inquiries into five provincial killings, including the 2003 stabbing of Alexei Sidorov who reported on corruption for an independent newspaper in the city of Togliatti and the death of his colleague Valery Ivanov a year earlier.
Investigations will also be reopened into the 2001 shooting of Eduard Markevich near the town of Asbest, the death of Natalia Skryl in Taganrog in 2002 and the death of Vagif Kochetkov in Tula in 2005.
Mr Medvedev, who has been more vocal in his condemnation of journalist killings than his predecessor Vladimir Putin, last week said he would boost the powers of the Investigative Committee, separating it from the Prosecutor General's Office and making it directly answerable to the Kremlin.