Sure, that could happen and be the result out of all this. I think that is jumping to the worst possible conclusion though and the result will be a bit more nuanced than that.

If a Russian citizen exposed evidence that the Beslan massacre of schoolchildren was staged by the government and Putin tossed them in prison under an espionage law that explicitly criminalizes leaks, would you consider that situation "nuanced"?

"Russia also does this. Inconvenient journalists are designated "foreign agents", for instance."

Inconvenient journalists financed from abroad. And "foreign agents" are not imprisoned, they just obligated by the law to remind their readers about this fact.