Date: 03/30/22
Author: Kent Moors, Ph.D.
Dmitry Muratov closed up shop on Monday. The founder, once and lately current editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, and 2021 joint winner of the Nobel Peace Prize had been the last independent voice in Moscow media.
photo: euronews.com
No longer in Putin’s Russia where you toe the Kremlin’s line or feel the wrath of the state apparatus.
On Monday, the newspaper had received a second warning from Roskomnadzor, the state media and communications regulator. Under restrictive laws governing the media, a Russian newspaper can lose its license to print if it receives two warnings from the regulator in the same year.
Novaya Gazeta had been the last voice of critical journalism against Czar Vladimir’s invasion of Ukraine. The only reason it had lasted in print this long was the considerable personal reputation of Muratov. The newspaper has said it will not reappear until the war in Ukraine is over.
This leaves social media sources YouTube and Telegram as pretty much the only places one can find critical news on the war anywhere in today’s Russia. There are also sporadic reports from Ukraine on Facebook (such as those now continued by Novaya reporter Elena Milashina). But for those you now need a VPN to escape government action (a “virtual private network” encrypts internet traffic on unsecured networks to protect online identity, hide an IP address, and shield online data from third parties) and that significantly limits its usage until material reaches a location where is can be disseminated by more traditional methods.
What is unfolding in Moscow journalism these days is bringing back a flood of personal memories. And so, this Classified Intelligence Brief Spy Tale will be introducing you to some of them.
Being a journalist has not been the safest of occupations in “Mother Russia.” At least 21 have been murdered since Putin took power in 2000. These have included personal friend and well-known government critic Anna Politkovskaya.
Anna was born in New York City to Ukrainian parents who were part of the diplomatic delegation at the UN. In those days, the Soviets held three seats in the General Assembly, separate ones for Ukraine and Belarus (then called Byelorussia) as a curious result of the Yalta Conference in February 1945. Initially Moscow had objected to the inclusion of India and the Philippines, arguing (not entirely incorrectly) that they were more accurately colonies of the UK and US not independent countries and had further insisted that each of the 15 Soviet republics have its own presence. The three seats were part of a compromise that brought in India and the Philippines before they were actually “on their own.”
Returning with her parents to the Soviet Union, Anna would later emerge as an internationally known writer whose revelations on the Chechen War and critical take on Putin were published first by her Russian editor – Dmitry Muratov in the Novaya Gazeta.
After surviving a mock execution in Chechnya and a poisoning Anna was gunned down in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building on October 7, 2006. In 2014, five men were sentenced for the murder but it is still unknown who ordered the hit.
Anna had been a classmate of my wife Marina when they were both students at Moscow State University. She was married to Alexander Politkovsky, one of the founding hosts of an immensely popular Russian TV show called Vzglyad (“Glance”) which began in 1987 as the first broadcast that would take an occasional jaundiced eye to government conduct (carefully). Alexander would later become an elected member of the Russian Duma (the more powerful lower house of the Russian legislature) in the early 1990s.
Anna spent less than a few weeks outside the country since her return as a child and was a Russian citizen but still held her US passport (via jus soli, i.e., citizenship determined by place of birth) until her death.
An earlier Spy Tale revisited one of Marina’s Moscow Diary columns and told the story of another murder, this time a dogged critic of the Russian military command (“The Murder of a Crusading Journalist in Moscow,” Classified Intelligence Brief, November 17, 2001) and occurred shortly before Putin assumed power from Boris Yeltsin.
This was Dmitri Kholodov. We also knew “Dima,” stood as witnesses at his wedding (where he got into a loud political disagreement before making it out the door) and numbered ourselves among his few friends. Notwithstanding, we would all keep our distance. He walked upon the earth like a grenade with its pin pulled out, always threatening to explode. Unfortunately, that happened literally. Dima was blown up in the newsroom of Moscow’s largest circulation newspaper Moskovskii Komsomolets.
The fate of journalists has been a thorn in the side of Putin throughout his reign. He has also often used surrogates among the oligarchs and siloviki (The former KGB brotherhood that rose to power with their comrade Vlad) to control the airwaves and the presses short of murder.
Occasionally, this includes those who control major corporations, with natural gas behemoth Gazprom well up on that list. We in American intelligence would watch with some amusement as Gazprom would accumulate media outlets having absolutely nothing to do with their main business interests.
One of those figured in recent news. Ekho Moskvy was a very popular and independent minded radio station in Moscow. It closed operations on March 3 as Russian tanks were rumbling into Ukraine. Gazprom controls the station’s board.
But this is hardly a new development. Gazprom, on behalf of Putin and his predecessors, has often figured in stifling a free press.
And that, after some delay, comprises the segue to today’s Spy Tale entry. It took place during one of my frequent extended stays in Moscow and involved a neighbor of mine.
Evgeniy K. had an apartment in the same building as mine. A soft-spoken business writer at a not-so-softly-written major newspaper in Moscow, he was hardly the type to take on crusades or write about controversial subjects. We were about the same age in those days (let’s say late 30s). Evgeniy shied away from politics and preferred the normally dry world of investment news.
But he arrived at work recently to find his entire section of writers huddled in vigorous debate. The controlling interest in the paper, it appeared, had been sold not once but twice to outside interests only to be transferred “in trust” to the dominant group on the managing board. All in the space of less than two days.
Normally, Evgeniy could care less about such maneuvers. Komsomolskaya Pravda had been one of the few successful Moscow dailies, well regarded for its writing and usually more moderate than others in the enemies it would make. More to the point was its status as a closed joint-stock company.
That meant the people who worked there would determine the management. Most thought that would insulate the staff from the ownership contests and takeover fights plaguing other newspapers. Whoever ended up on top would still have to answer to the stockholders. And the stockholders were people like Evgeniy – the ones who actually wrote, edited, and printed the newspaper.
Well, after what he told me, it seemed they needed to think over the whole matter again. Because this time the battle threatened to spill over into politics and produce an ugly public wrestling match.
The issue was naked power and the ability to create a media more to the liking of Russia’s already too powerful financial barons.
In a closed joint-stock company, shares could only be sold with the permission of the current stockholders. That should have meant the editors and staff. Somehow, however, over 20 percent was allowed to be transferred to Gazprom – the largest monopoly on the face of the earth. No sooner had that deal been struck than the same block was transferred to banking powerhouse Oneximbank.
The bank controlled large parts of the nation’s aging industrial base, including mining powerhouse Norilsk Nickel, and had some of the best back door connections directly to the leadership in the Kremlin. A brawl was about to erupt between two of the primary private investors in Russia. And the future of Komsomolskaya Pravda hung in the balance.
If events at other papers were any indication, Evgeniy had to be concerned. A disagreement between the board and its Greek source of funds had caused the former communist party rag Pravda to close, while a suspect deal at Izvestia ended up with Lukoil, at the time the country’s largest producer of petrochemicals, positioned to control its presses.
In this latter deal, business writer Evgeniy told me it was widely thought that the oil company had paid 700 percent more than the stock was worth only to have the chair of Lukoil angrily (and in public) attack the paper’s editors as “yellow.”
Having now threatened to censure what was printed, Izvestia staff openly wondered whether the new investment might have given them the kiss of death. Who would read a newspaper so heavily controlled by those having so little regard for journalistic integrity?
No problem it seemed for those in the Kremlin who had no interest in circulation.
Other fights over investor control erupted in short order at Rossiiskaya Gazeta (the government’s newspaper), Trud (the primary labor union publication), and several others. Already the likes of Gazprom and the major banks had acquired significant interests in major television and radio outlets. Mass media had become the current chess board among the heavy hitters in the Russian financial world, but the strings were being adroitly pulled by others further up the food chain.
New Sigma Update Secures 7 Triple Digit Gains in 3 months.
Dr. Moors’ newest technology is steaming ahead, giving subscribers 7 chances to double their money or better.
Click the link here to see his latest message.
As I sympathized with Evgeniy and his associates, it occurred to me that Russia had yet to understand monopolies and the dangers of destroying market competition. Rather odd, I thought, give the initial ideology of the Bolshevik founders. Media voices were rapidly being consolidated. Gazprom, for example, already controlled 51 percent of another newspaper through one of its industrial holding companies while it was moving on Evgeniy’s paper.
Oh yes, the Russian Prime Minister at the time – Viktor Chernomyrdin – had been the head of Gazprom before he accepted his government gig. Funny how those things worked out.
All of which left Evgeniy in a difficult situation. He usually wrote about industrial mergers and acquisitions. Hardly front-page material. Unless, of course, it involved the very future of his newspaper.
But the pressure would become intense. Which probably explains why he had been talking lately about moving over to teaching journalism. One could hardly blame him. Maybe the next generation of reporters would have more luck balancing objectivity with keeping a job.
Within a year, Evgeniy had left what was left of Komsomolskaya Pravda, bounced around for a bit as a stringer writing for various outlets, eventually banding together with some other colleagues and did start a school of journalism.
After barely keeping their heads above water, the school finally came on solid footing after a major investment of money and talent from a guy who used to be his newspaper’s competitor – Dmitry Muratov.
Odd how things work out.
Dr. Kent Moors
This is an installment of Classified Intelligence Brief, your guide to what’s really happening behind the headlines… and how to profit from it. Dr. Kent Moors served the United States for 30 years as one of the most highly decorated intelligence operatives alive today (including THREE Presidential commendations).
After moving through the inner circles of royalty, oligarchs, billionaires, and the uber-rich, he discovered some of the most important secrets regarding finance, geo-politics, and business. As a result, he built one of the most impressive rolodexes in the world. His insights and network of contacts took him from a Vietnam veteran to becoming one of the globe’s most sought after consultants, with clients including six of the largest energy companies and the United States government.
Now, Dr. Moors is sharing his proprietary research every week…knowledge filtered through his decades as an internationally recognized professor and scholar, intelligence operative, business consultant, investor, and geo-political “troubleshooter.” This publication is designed to give you an insider’s view of what is really happening on the geo-political stage.
You can sign up for FREE to Classified Intelligence Brief and begin receiving insights from Dr. Moors and his team immediately.
Just click here – https://classifiedintelligencebrief.com/
