Russian oil giant Rosneft, run by a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is wielding growing influence over the nation’s remaining independent media outlets, already squeezed by tightening press freedoms and pressure from the Kremlin.
Now, reporters at the country’s top liberal business daily Vedomosti — shaken in March by an announcement from owner Demyan Kudryavtsev that he planned to sell the newspaper — have denounced censorship under its new acting editor-in-chief, Andrei Shmarov, who was appointed in late March, ahead of the sale’s completion.
Journalists say they were barred from covering negative opinion polls of Putin, and that editors interfered in coverage of Rosneft.
Photo: AFP
On Friday, the new owner was announced as the head of a little-known regional news agency called FederalPress, Ivan Yeryomin.
An investigation last month by several Russian news outlets, including Vedomosti, revealed that Rosneft leveraged control over the paper through debts owed by Kudryavtsev to the oil giant’s bank.
Kudryavtsev denied these allegations; Rosneft has not reacted.
“The real owner is Rosneft through a chain of debt,” said Vedomosti editor-at-large Maxim Trudolyubov, who has worked at the paper since it started in 1999.
He said the new editor-in-chief was “selected to run the newspaper favorably to the new owner… They just wanted to silence it.”
He described Rosneft chief executive Igor Sechin as “some sort of a hitman” employing aggressive tactics.”
“He plays a complicated game of takeovers to build his empire at the expense of other oligarchs. It’s about assets, money, influence,” Trudolyubov said.
The newspaper wrote in a recent editorial: “Vedomosti will just become another dependent and controlled media outlet.”
On Friday, the paper wrote that the change of ownership deal undoubtedly had “not only commercial aims.”
Its editorial suggested that “unnamed figures who really stand behind the official buyers ... see the publication as an instrument of influence, not a business.”
“This is a public humiliation of the Vedomosti brand and its editorial staff,” Meduza news site editor-in-chief Galina Timchenko said.
Last month it was the turn of another respected business daily, RBK. Rosneft is suing the newspaper for a record 43 billion rubles (US$612 million) over an article about its activities in Venezuela.
“We aren’t worried, because we know our work is correct and honest,” said Timofei Dzyadko, an energy reporter at the paper.
However, RBK editor-in-chief Pyotr Kanayev said the lawsuit was surprising.
“We published [an] article based on public information and we’re not the source of this information,” he said, adding that RBK’s news coverage “doesn’t serve anybody’s interests, only our audience.”
A legal defeat against the oil giant would deal the media outlet a serious blow.
The two decades of Putin’s rule have seen all the national television channels as well as a number of radio stations and newspapers pass into the hands of Kremlin-friendly owners.
Vedomosti launched in September 1999 as Putin emerged as Russia’s dominant political figure.
The paper was cofounded and co-owned by Dutch entrepreneur Derk Sauer’s Independent Media, the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal, demonstrating Russia’s entry into the fold of Western capitalist countries. It has changed hands several times since its first print run as lawmakers introduced new legislation limiting foreign ownership of Russian media.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was