Last week, when news broke that cnn founder Ted Turner might buy a stake in Media-Most, police raided the company again. This time they searched the offices of the executive who had been due to leave for London that day for discussions on the Turner purchase. Much of the motivation for the campaign against Media-Most is pure power politics. Chances are the Kremlin wants to control TV news, with its nationwide reach, while leaving newspapers, largely the preserve of well-heeled urbanites, more or less untouched. But self-censorship is already setting in.
Many observers fear that curbs on the press are only the beginning.
The Russian legislature has also become a quieter place since Putin was elected. Many of the curbs, though, were self-inflicted from a desire to pander to the new strong man or avoid the price of resistance. Putin's own obedient bloc, Unity, dominates the lower house, or Duma, and the President gets on well with the Communists, who like his neo-Soviet tendencies. Making masterly use of the skeletons most public figures have in their closets, Putin has chipped away at the power bases of Russia's autocratic and often venal governors. Some, like St. Petersburg's Vladimir Yakovlev, switched from strident opposition to loyal support when the government hinted it might investigate corruption in the city.