“The project is destroyed and suppressed.” It was July 12th. Aleksandr Bajanov54, thus announced on Facebook that the information site on Siberia, Tayga.Infohad been distorted by the “military censorship” that had hit Russia after February 24 and also by having left Russia with his family after the many threats he had suffered.
A desperate post that quickly went viral. An ordinary story behind the anonymous numbers of the relentless repression: in one year, over a thousand Russian journalists forced into exile, 800,000 websites blocked, 800 criminal trials for opinions expressed on the Internet.
Italian cinema in Russia’s sights: “It makes LGBTQ propaganda”. The series by Margherita Buy and the film Perfect Strangers by Riccardo Ricci were fined on 23 June 2023
Today Bajanov has found refuge in Italy and co-edited the latest issue of the monthly Vita, a special edition, all signed by independent Russian reporters like him. He is disillusioned. “The Kremlin now controls everything, there are no islands of freedom left. We returned to the USSR. In fact, it’s worse. People no longer think for themselves than he does, but they have entrusted the government with their right to choose, ”he says to Republic. But he cherishes the hope that one day he will be able to live again in a different Russia.
Bajanov, ha fondo Tayga.Info in 2004 and made it one of the 30 most influential media in Russia. Now, he said, it is “destroyed”. Why? What were the stages of his slow agony?
“On March 1 last year, just a few days after the start of the conflict in Ukraine, the site was blocked together with Tv Dozhd and other leading Russian independent media. The reason? We had used the word “war”.
After the approval of the “fake news” law, we stopped covering military operations in order not to expose our journalists to the risk of criminal prosecution. We ended up dealing only with regional and economic news. We avoided all thorny topics.
The Ukrainian prime minister: “Ours is already a NATO army. We will liberate all territories occupied after 1991” by our correspondent Antonello Guerrera 23 June 2023
Traffic dropped 30 percent and advertisers fled, but we managed to pay wages for a while thanks to the savings we put aside the year before. Meanwhile, we presented an appeal against the blockade, but in July of last year we lost it. That’s when I knew it was over. And I left.
I would have liked to reopen the editorial office abroad, perhaps in Kazakhstan. I asked for funds from the EU, but I didn’t get them. On May 5, Tayga.Info was labeled a “foreign agent”. It is now only a shadow of what it was”.
Were you not pressured and self-censored before 2022?
“Self-censorship has always been there. Not just from us. We could freely criticize the government’s actions, but there was one red line that could not be crossed: Putin.
After the arrest of Alexey Navalny in 2021 it became clear that it was better not to write about him and his trial either. With the war came de facto military censorship. Not only were the laws passed prohibiting the publication of news about military operations, but also veiled threats not to write about related topics.
All the red lines are blown. Independent media has suddenly become outlawed. No one expected it to end in such a catastrophic way.”
Crimea, the strategic bridge for the Russians hit. Kiev: “In Zaporizhzhia risk of atomic disaster” by our correspondent Fabio Tonacci 22 June 2023
So before February 24, 2022, had you never had the feeling that there was no freedom of speech in Russia? Various newspapers had come under the control of the authorities, “Tv Dozhd” had been confined to the satellite network. Not to mention Anna Politkovskaya and the other journalists killed…
“Censorship first hit TV and then the press. I expected that sooner or later it would also touch the Internet. But, like many colleagues, I lived under the illusion that we would find a compromise, that our site would continue to exist. It was just an illusion. Now we know. But no one expected the hammer blow that hit the media with the war”.
Already in 2021 many newsrooms labeled as “non grata” or as “foreign agents” had emigrated so much that the lawyer Ilja Novikov had coined the term “offshore journalism”. Now almost all Russian independent journalism has gone “offshore”. Can free information be made from outside the country?
“Even the “off-shore” media themselves ask for it. It is impossible to be an independent media outside the country because sooner or later you lose touch with reality, not experiencing firsthand the drama and tragedy experienced by the remaining citizens. Therefore many newspapers prefer to give information about the war in Ukraine that otherwise would not reach Russia. At least they are trying to counter the Kremlin’s propaganda in this way”.
They buy in the EU, they sell to Putin: the ex-USSR network that circumvents sanctions by our correspondent Claudio Tito 23 June 2023
Many news outlets have migrated to the Telegram instant messaging app or YouTube video platform. Are they a real alternative?
“Only partially. The audience is extremely fragmented. The over-fifty trust only television and pro-government sites and use the Internet in a primitive way: to look for recipes or surf the social networks, but not to get information. The news for them must be given by the TVs. Young people and people between 25 and 50 are instead very active on the Net. But YouTube and Telegram cannot replace websites. Either you follow them 24/7 or you end up lost.”
All dissenting voices in Russia are now in exile like her or behind bars like journalist Maria Ponomarenko. Is there still some island of freedom? Or at least hope for change?
“There is always hope. But the situation is truly tragic. The Kremlin has put in place an extraordinarily effective repressive machine through which it controls all of society. There is no room for freedom left. The new clandestine “samizdat” run on the Net, but they don’t have time to appear before they are closed. The few surviving independent media are forced to use Aesopian language full of metaphors. We returned to the USSR. Indeed, now it is worse, because the repression machine is much more effective because it uses technology“.
Why Russia has returned to threaten the use of nuclear weapons by Rosalba Castelletti 22 June 2023
How successful is the propaganda? What hope is there that people understand what is really going on in Ukraine?
“According to polls, 70 percent of Russians are in favor of Vladimir Putin and the war. However, it should not be forgotten that there is a 30 percent against. But above all it should be considered that, according to some polls circulated clandestinely, of the 70 percent in favor, 40 percent are undecided. He would be ready to support any peace negotiations. This gives hope.
In the seventy years of the Soviet Union and in the twenty years of Putin’s regime, there has been an anthropological transformation: the Russian man has become estranged from himself. He handed over his freedom of choice to the government. He has let the government decide what is good or bad for him.
Hope must be placed in the undecided 30 percent: in small businesses, in young people, in people who, despite everything, manage to be socially active and do not entrust themselves totally to the government. This 30 percent is silent. He expresses his dissent in a low voice, in the “kitchen”, as in Soviet times.
He does not actively speak out against the government. But it exists. On 12 June there was a fundraising for political prisoners which raised more than 300,000 euros: 40 percent came in rubles. It is an important fact. It means that there are people who are willing to take risks and step forward if given an opportunity”.
Reconstruction aid to Ukraine. EU and USA: “Moscow must pay” by our correspondent Antonello Guerrera 22 June 2023
What hope do you have of repatriation? Under what conditions would you return to Russia?
“No one could have thought that there would be such a useless, silly, crazy and harmful war for Russia and the rest of the world. I cultivate hope in the return. The question is when. The main condition is that society changes, that it recovers its “subjectivity”. But the change has to start from the head.
With the withdrawal – voluntary or otherwise – of Vladimir Putin and his entourage. As long as this regime remains in place, returning for me and my family would be dangerous.”