On Wednesday, Ksenia Boletskaya, the newspaper’s media editor, wrote that Shmarov had banned the publication of polls by the independent pollster Levada because the Kremlin had opposed them, and that Shmarov had blocked reporters from criticising Putin’s plans to use constitutional amendments to “zero out” his presidential terms, potentially allowing him to hold power until 2036. “For failing to follow the bans, you’ll be fired,” Boletskaya wrote.
A number of independent outlets claim they have been censored by owners with pro-government views. In 2014, staff at the news website Lenta.ru complained of censorship and quit en masse after the site’s editor was dismissed.
In 2016, a newly installed manager of RBC, another business news site, which had written about controversial topics including Putin’s children, told reporters there were “solid double lines” that the reporters had to be careful not to cross. Asked what those were, the manager replied: “Unfortunately, nobody knows where the solid double line is.”
