Two radio news services funded by the US government that broadcast across Russia and were frequently critical of the Kremlin have been largely taken off the air.
The number of Russian radio stations that broadcast the news content of Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Liberty has fallen from from 72 to nine since September.
The US stations have attributed the move to pressure exerted on their Russian partners through checks on broadcasting licenses.
VOA and Radio Liberty, also known as Radio Free Europe, can avoid the self-censorship and state loyalty that blights much of Russia's media. They have been persistently critical of the purported "roll-back of democracy" ushered in by the administration of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The news is an awkward reminder of the administration's crackdown on the media and comes days before Putin hosts his G8 colleagues for a summit in St Petersburg. The US and the EU have criticized the lengthy media crackdown in Russia.
Yevgeny Strelchik, an aide to the head of the licensing agency, disagreed that VOA and Radio Liberty had been shut down. Russian officials have said the changes are due to a check on whether stations are sticking to the terms of their licenses, some of which oblige them to broadcast self-generated content.
Civil society advocates say that such bureaucratic regulations are designed to give officials scope to close organizations that are politically inconvenient.
The restriction removes a dissenting voice in the Russian media that millions have tuned in to for an alternative point of view since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
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