CPJ Blog

Press Freedom News and Views

Elena Milashina

Elena Milashina is an award-winning, investigative journalist with Novaya Gazeta and a Moscow correspondent for CPJ.

Independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta is suffering from a raid and audit on its major shareholder. (AP)

Russia's leading independent media head into Sunday's elections--in which Vladimir Putin is expected to be handed his third presidential term--burdened by a series of warnings. Over the past few months, beginning with the parliamentary elections held December 4, Kremlin allies have taken several steps designed to put news outlets on alert for uncensored coverage of nationwide protests, in which a surprising number of Russians have demanded an end to elections fraud and called on Putin to step down from his current post of prime minister.

A signboard held outside an Interior Ministry building in Moscow in 2010 reads: 'Journalist Oleg Kashin is beaten. I demand perpetrators and masterminds be found.' (Reuters/Denis Sinyakov)

A year ago, on a November night, two unidentified assailants awaited Oleg Kashin, a correspondent for the Russian business daily Kommersant, by his home on a central Moscow street, a 10-minute walk from the Kremlin. The two had hidden steel rods in bouquets of flowers.

Anna Politkovskaya photographed in 2005 (AFP)

Russia's Investigative Committee has named the main suspects in the October 7, 2006, murder of Anna Politkovskaya. But the news did not cause a stir. Russian journalists reacted to it rather languidly; for instance, Novaya Gazeta, where Politkovskaya worked, did not make any notable comments.

This is not because Politkovskaya's murder--now five years old--has been forgotten in Russia. The tepid interest is mostly due to the fact that there are no new names among the suspects.

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