Journalists of the Russian publishing house Kommersant wrote an open letter on Wednesday in a show of support for the two top employees who were fired after publishing photos showing offensive remarks targeting Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

The joint statement comes after the owner of the Kommersant publishing house, Russian tycoon Alisher Usmanov, fired the holding CEO Andrey Galiev and editor-in-chief of the Kommersant Vlast magazine Maxim Kovalsky on Tuesday after they published several photos accompanying an article about the December 4 State Duma elections. One photo depicted a vote ballot with an obscene remark aiming Putin, written in red ink across it.

The letter, published on the infotainment web site, Open Space, is signed by the team of over 40 journalists, including Oleg Kashin, who was severely beaten in November 2010, allegedly after his remarks criticizing pro-Kremlin youth movements.

The journalists said that they viewed Kovalsky’s dismissal as an “act of intimidation, aimed at preventing any critical statement towards Putin.”

The publishing of the abusive photo is not the magazine’s attitude towards Putin, “it is the photo, reflecting people’s real behavior at the polling stations,” the journalists said in the letter.

“We are being forced into cowardice, which is inadmissible and counterproductive,” the letter reads.

The whole issue of the scandalous Vlast weekly was devoted to analysis of the results and the alleged violations of the vote in which Putin’s ruling United Russia party barely maintained a parliamentary majority.

December's vote was heavily criticized by many foreign and domestic observers as rigged in favor of the ruling party. The country's leadership does not agree with this assertion but President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered an investigation into the complaints.

The Kommersant publishing house is one of the biggest, oldest and most respected Russian news organizations. In 2006 it was acquired by Usmanov, a metals tycoon with close ties to the state-owned Gazprom corporation. He is also a major stakeholder in the British football club, Arsenal.