The shocking news was reported by RIA Novosti on August 30th that Russia????????s most prominent and well-respected newspaper, Kommersant (???????the Merchant???????), had been sold to Alisher Usmanov (pictured below), the owner of the Metalloinvest and Gazprominvestholding holding companies, the latter a subsidiary of Kremlin-controlled Gazprom. Usmanov is an Uzbek-born oligarch who has served six years in prison for fraud. RIA also reported that ???????Gazprom Media, the division of the state-owned energy giant, has in recent years taken control of once independent television station NTV, its satellite division NTV+, regional broadcaster TNT, Echo of Moscow (Ekho Moskvy) radio station, broadsheet Izvestia and current affairs weekly magazine Itogi (Results).???????

Russian prosecutors are currently hounding both of Kommersant????????s previous owners, Badri Patarkatsishvili and Boris Berezovsky, on charges similar to those leveled against Yukos Chairman Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Obviously, both men are highly critical of the Kremlin, so speculation is already rife that the takeover of Kommersant by Gazprom may have resulted from pressure applied by the threat of criminal prosecution and may be designed to muzzle the paper in the same way that the Kremlin has already silenced Vladimir Guzinsky????????s NTV television channel.

The Kremlin already has total control over the Russian airwaves, and recently went so far as to ban the Voice of America from broadcasting its Russian radio program. Non-Orthodox Christian radio has also been forced off the air. The only remaining pocket of independence and criticism left in Russia is the print media, and Kommersant is the flagship of that community. On September 1st, the Moscow Times reported that ???????senior Kommersant editors Thursday cast doubt on Alisher Usmanov’s claim that he would not tamper with the newspaper’s editorial policy after he acquired it.??????? It quoted Kommersant staff as follows:

“It would be too early to say now whether I believe promises that the editorial policy of Kommersant will be left unchanged,” chief editor Vladislav Borodulin told RIA-Novosti while attending a Beijing forum of editors of Chinese and Russian media. Another senior Kommersant staffer was more blunt. “All this talk of this being some kind of private investment — give me a break,” he said. Several senior staff members may soon leave, he added. A senior writer at the paper confirmed that deputy editor Alexander Shadrin, responsible for business coverage, resigned Wednesday. Tatyana Lysova, the top editor at Vedomosti, Kommersant’s main rival, expressed deep reservations about the change in ownership. “We like to see a strong competitor,” she said. “In the immediate period after the sale, business readers’ trust in Kommersant is likely to drop.”

It quoted a media expert predicting the beginning of the end as well:

Since Usmanov is a well-connected steel magnate, it is unlikely the paper will retain its objective, often anti-Kremlin perspective, said Boris Timoshenko, head of monitoring at the Glasnost Defense Foundation.”Practice shows that Kommersant may well lose its face, its influence and its readership,” Timoshenko said, referring to Gazeta, Izvestia and Nezavisimaya Gazeta. All these papers have been snapped up by Kremlin-friendly owners and have shifted their reporting away from serious, often probing journalism to more tabloid-style coverage. Timoshenko noted that Gazeta, also bought by a steel magnate, Vladimir Lisin, had “joined the row of those colorful, superficially successful but bland publications.”

A report by Radio Free Europe states that ???????the business daily is widely respected for its independent analysis and has often been critical of the Kremlin.??????? Kommersant has circulation of nearly 123,000 and is distributed in 16 cities in Russia. The print media reach a fairly narrow audience, yet apparently the Kremlin still fears their influence and, having completed its neutering of the television media, is now moving on to newspapers. For those not intimately familiar with Russia, any close Russia watcher will confirm that Kommersant is not a replaceable loss. If the Kremlin destroys it, that will conclusively signal the absence of any possibility for benign government in Russia in the near future without direct confrontation of the Kremlin????????s anti-democratic moves. RFE????????s report states: ???????Oleg Panfilov, the head of the Moscow-based media watchdog Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, says: ???????I distrust such people ÄUsmanovÅ, who a year before the parliamentary and presidential elections are buying media outlets. I don’t think that it is just a simple ÄdealÅ. I also think that the Kremlin is concerned that to this point several newspapers are still not under its control.??????????????? It????????s obviously logical, if the Kremlin was planning to muzzle the print media, that it would begin to do so now, with parliamentary and presidential elections soon in the offing. Given President Putin????????s stratospheric 70%+ approval ratings, it is clear that Putin is not satisfied with his current level of control and is looking for a fully-realized Neo-Soviet ???????majority??????? of 100% (or more).

If it becomes apparent that Kommersant has been silenced, it will be time for the world to act strongly in opposition before the Neo-Soviet chokehold on Russia is fully consolidated. The world should remember the old adage: ???????Fool me once, shame on you! Fool me twice, shame on me!???????

Kim Zigfeld is the publisher of the Russia blog La Russophobe.