Roman Ivanov lives in Korolev, Moscow Region. He is a journalist of RusNews and the author of the protest blog "Chestnoe Korolevskoe!" He is married and has an elderly mother as a dependent.

Due to his work as a journalist, Roman Ivanov has been harassed in Korolev since 2020 and has been searched before. Presumably, the real reason for the harassment was Ivanov's work as a journalist documenting irregularities in the September 2021 elections.

In the early morning of 11 April 2023, a search was conducted at the flat of the journalist and his wife in Korolev. The basis of the criminal prosecution of Roman were the messages in a public blog, which he hosted. They contained facts about Russia's military actions on the territory of Ukraine with the indication of sources - the most authoritative world media. Among them was a post containing a paraphrase of a UN report that referred to war crimes committed by the Russian army.

It is also important to note that this is at least the second case of criminal prosecution of journalists of the independent publication RusNews. In February 2023, a court in Barnaul sentenced RusNews journalist Maria Ponomarenko to six years in prison.