Upon assuming office in January 2000, Russian President Vladimir Putin undertook major efforts to increase state ownership of the media and tighten restrictions on journalistic freedom. Some of these efforts have resulted in legislation via the normal political process, but Putin has waged his campaign primarily through unilateral, covert action.

Upon assuming office in January 2000, Russian President Vladimir Putin undertook major efforts to increase state ownership of the media and tighten restrictions on journalistic freedom.

Some of these efforts have resulted in legislation via the normal political process, but Putin has waged his campaign primarily through unilateral, covert action. In perhaps the most blatant illustration of these tactics, he revoked the operating licenses of several television stations in April 2001 without even the pretense of the Duma's approval. After Chechen rebels took hundreds of people hostage in a Moscow theater in November 2002, the Duma passed legislation that barred the press from reporting on state military operations and prohibited the expression of "rebellious views" or the dissemination of "propaganda." Although Putin actually vetoed this specific law, the overall trend toward state domination of the media is still evident. While this situation does not bode well for the future of Russian democracy, it has rarely evoked any significant protest from the Russian public.

Unlike his communist predecessors, Putin employs an indirect, subtle approach toward censorship that protects his regime from outright condemnation by other governments. Putin prefers to threaten broadcasters with the revocation of their licenses rather than to force them to shut down their operations. This technique has been surprisingly effective at keeping independent broadcasters in line with government policy while masking the extent of Putin’s campaign against free media. On occasion, however, Putin has jailed journalists with especially "dangerous" views. In early 2000, for example, journalist Andrei Babitsky of the US-sponsored program Radio Liberty was arrested. On several occasions, Babitsky criticized the Russian government’s incursions into Chechen villages and its bombardment of Grozny. Russian authorities subsequently arrested and beat him, and he was not released until several months later.

Even though Babitsky's story received widespread international attention, it did not provoke substantive action on the part of Western democracies. The United States simply called Babitsky's ordeal "disturbing." After the September 11 terrorist attacks against the United States, the US government abandoned even this token opposition to Putin's anti-democratic policies in an effort to draw Russia into its coalition against terrorism. This shift in attitude has left the independent Russian media without any significant international support. The United States has stopped criticizing Putin's government for pressuring journalists, and Putin has attempted to draw parallels between the US war on terrorism and Russia's intervention in Chechnya. While the United States has not explicitly endorsed this comparison, US President George Bush has also tempered his pre-September 11 insistence on Russia's withdrawal from the North Caucasus.

While many Russians realize that Putin's government actively suppresses free speech, few have taken concrete steps to oppose him. In fact, a significant portion of the Russian population actually supports Putin's censorship of the media. In a poll cited by the US magazine Newsweek, a full 57 percent of the respondents in Russia "approved of restoring censorship." Not surprisingly, the man who is working hard to fulfill this popular opinion commands a 70 percent approval rating. While these numbers might seem incredible to a Western observer, they can be understood in the context of Russia's recent history. The Russian people suffered through a prolonged period of economic stagnation combined with political corruption throughout the 1990s, an experience that led to widespread disillusionment with the democratic experiment. According to polls conducted in 2000, 79 percent of Russians regretted the fall of the Soviet Union.

The turbulent forces of democracy and market capitalism have shaken the economic and social stability that characterized life under communist rule and have not brought prosperity or political freedom. Not surprisingly, many in Russia consider the democratic experiment a failure and prefer a strong, centralized government to impose stability and order, even if maintained through censorship. Russians are both nostalgic for the past and disillusioned with the present, which makes them more tolerant of Putin's authoritarianism and often anti-democratic goals.

However, the Russian people’s willingness to tolerate censorship may prove short-lived, as Putin's attempts to bring a political solution to the war in Chechnya may undermine his own efforts to establish control over the Russian media. After the 1999 Moscow apartment bombings, some Russians began to perceive Chechen separatism as a threat to their security, a view that was reinforced by the October 2002 Moscow hostage crisis that resulted in dozens of civilian deaths. As a result, many Russians supported measures aimed at muzzling Chechen sympathizers like Babitsky. If Putin succeeds in his attempts to resolve the conflict in Chechnya, it will be more difficult for him to justify censorship on the basis of national security. Additionally, Putin’s failure to reverse Russia’s economic downturn could undermine his personal popularity, leaving him more vulnerable to critics of his anti-democratic control over the media. Finally, the international community of journalists has begun to take action against Putin’s abuses. Most notably, the American Journalism Review placed Putin fifth on its 2001 list of the "10 Worst Enemies of the Press," just behind Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. As a greater number of non-governmental organizations publicize the extent of Putin's anti-democratic efforts, international pressure on Putin to refrain from censorship will gradually increase, strengthening domestic critics of the Russian government.

Unfortunately, Russia's media stands little chance of maintaining its current level of autonomy in the near future. Putin's regime controls over 75 percent of all media companies in Russia, and this proportion rises every year. With only a muffled minority pushing for greater freedom, there is little chance that Russia’s media will be able to galvanize domestic resistance to greater government control over the media. Unless the trend is reversed, Putin's subtle campaign against free media could prove the single most significant obstacle to the success of Russia's experiment with democracy.