Created in the twilight of the Soviet Union in 1990, Ekho Moskvi (Echo of Moscow) radio has surpassed the years as a symbol of democratic resistance and the adaptation of Russian civil society to the journey that led to the war in Ukraine. No longer.
Its board dissolved it on Thursday, two days after communications regulatory agency Roskomnadzor ruled that it must go off the air until it adjusted its coverage of the conflict, removing words like war and invasion from the description of the obvious.
According to the censor, Eco was “deliberately spreading false information about the action of the Russian military” and making “an informational call for extremist activity and violence”. The board understood that it would not be possible to change the editorial line.
Before, it had only gone off the air in August 1991, during the ill-fated coup that the communist hardline tried to deliver to Mikhail Gorbachev, failing and only accelerating the process of decomposition of the Soviet Union, which ended on December 25 of that year.
Echo is not the only medium under attack. In addition to the country’s last independent TV, Dojd (rain), which is suspended for the same reasons, all media, including Kremlin-aligned or state-owned newspapers and broadcasters, must follow the guidelines. “Special military operation” is the approved term for the war, the aim of which is to “protect Donbass”, home to the ethnic Russians of eastern Ukraine.
“We are terrified,” says Ivan, a journalist who has collaborated with publications such as Novaia Gazeta (new newspaper), another liberal icon that is under fire for its coverage. He asked to have his first name changed, like other journalists who preferred anonymity until deciding the next step.
“It seems to me that only daily protests, as Alexei Navalni asked, can be the way out. But we have to organize ourselves, because otherwise we will just become new Navalni, rotting in jail”, said the reporter, in relation to the opposition leader who was arrested last year. past that has inspired mega-protests over the years.
Despite public figures joining the anti-war movement, street protests against the action are sparse. According to police violence monitor OVD-Info, as of this morning, 7,631 people had already been arrested for participating in acts without prior authorization — and the large “official” demonstration, called for by the liberal Yabloko party in Moscow, is unlikely to be approved.
The atmosphere among journalists is tense. Among those who work in state broadcasters, silence is the rule in newsrooms. There is particular concern about a law being cooked up in the Duma, the lower house of parliament, according to which anyone caught “collaborating with other countries against Russia” could face 15 to 20 years in prison.
Such collaboration, they assess, can be identified at the limit in an innocent conversation about their working conditions with foreign colleagues. Conversations have migrated from Telegram, ubiquitous in Russia, to theoretically less exposed apps like Signal. But nobody feels safe.
In the case of Eco de Moscow, the outcome is impressive precisely because of the broadcaster’s ability to overcome difficulties. It, like Novaia Gazeta headed by Nobel Peace Prize Dmitri Muratov, was part of a certain intellectual opposition consented to by the government of Vladimir Putin.
Not that the president liked her, but the Kremlin tolerated her as proof of her malleability before the Russian elite, which first and foremost likes to see itself as European and liberal in customs. The balance was complex: the proximity to power made the veteran editor-in-chief of Eco, Alexei Venediktov, seen as a traitor by the most radical fringes of the opposition, such as Navalni’s supporters.,
Symbol of this is that the radio was already controlled for years by the media arm of Gazprom, the state-owned Russian natural gas giant. Yet, as Ivan says, it was seen as an island of normalcy in the country’s pro-Kremlin media.
Thus, she escaped being classified as a foreign agent, something that under a 2012 law can make the operation of media unfeasible by a special tax inspection regime seen as merely prior censorship. At the heart of the legislation is Putin’s suspicion that foreign funding belies the promotion of “color revolutions” such as those seen against the Kremlin in ex-Soviet countries.
All of this climate is poisoning the middle-class debate that rose in Putin’s years in power. Russian political scientist Maria Sevtchenka, 43, who has lived in Paris for five years and works for a consultancy, says she is no longer able to talk to her parents and siblings on the phone.
“They bought Putin’s vision. My God, we are, as our surname implies, of Ukrainian origin. We have relatives who live in Kiev and Lviv, we don’t know if they are alive or dead. year?”, he told by message, in an extreme version of the dilemmas that have accompanied the Brazilian political debate for years.
After the start of the war a week ago, only one opinion poll was published in Russia. Not to mention the conflict, he pointed out that Putin has seen his approval rise from 60% to 71% since the beginning of the month.
It was made by the state-owned FOM, and the final result matches the popularity measured in January by the president by Levada, the most respected independent polling center in the country. In fact, he has not yet published any survey — classified as a foreign agent, he will have to measure every question he asks on the subject.
The end of the Moscow Echo ends an era that began with the end of the Cold War. What lies ahead today is unfathomable for Russians.
