It is not just news outlets that are threatened by the media law. Foreign publishers of glossy magazines, such as Hearst and Condé Nast, will also have to shut them or sell to a local buyer at depressed prices. This amounts to a “blatant appropriation of property,” according to Derk Sauer, a Dutch investor who founded Vedomosti in 1999. Of course, Mr Putin will be able to point out that many countries, America included, restrict foreign ownership of some media. But in a sign of how rushed and emotive the passage of the law was, it will undo an investment the Russian leader celebrated with great fanfare not long ago: in 2011 Disney spent $300 million on a 49% stake in a Russian television channel, a deal that will now have to be undone.
