10 Reasons Why Vladimir Putin is a Terrible Human Being
5. He Put an End to Freedom of Speech
From his first days as president, Putin moved quickly to dominate the media landscape in Russia, putting not only state media but privately owned broadcast media under the Kremlin’s influence.
In 2000, shortly after Putin was inaugurated as Russia’s president, government security forces arrived at the offices of the parent company of NTV, an independent channel generating high ratings for its investigative reporting, and began seizing documents. State-controlled Gazprom-Media took over the channel less than a year later. While NTV is still one of Russia’s biggest channels, it has been politically neutered and now hews closely to the Kremlin’s viewpoint.
The limitations on the media have existed for the 15 years that Vladimir Putin has been in power, but the war in Ukraine has solidified Putin’s grip on the media as a propaganda tool even more. All of the Russian broadcasters are instruments for controlling the public opinion, glorifying Putin, preaching anti-Western and anti-opposition message, and spreading propaganda and disinformation.
