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In a not unexpected move, the Russian government has outlawed news outlet Meduza.
Anybody inside Russia who reads Meduza, writes about Meduza, talks about Meduza or who has contacts with anybody who does so, is now automatically a criminal, and could be punished with up to 4 years in prison.
To conclude, just a quote taken from Everything Flows, by Vasili Grossman:
I too was influenced by it, I was just a young woman, and you heard it at meetings, at special instruction gatherings, on the radio and in the movie theatre, and from the writers, and by Stalin himself, always the same: the kulaks were parasites, they burned the grain and kill children. It was said directly: we have to raise the anger of the masses against those damn kulaks and destroy their whole class. I too became bewitched, I too thought: everything is to blame on the kulaks, and once they are destroyed, there will be better times for the peasants. You shouldn't feel pity for them, they weren't humans, but god knows which creatures.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by quietus on Friday January 27, @09:49AM
Meduza, along with a whole raft of other Russian news sites and blogs was obligated to put a banner up stating that, according to Russian law, they were to be considered a Foreign Agent. That was in the autumn before the invasion, if I remember correctly. This, however, is a step up.
There could be 2 reasons. The first one is that this is standard Stalinist/'communist' operating procedure -- you strangle society step-by-step, not abruptly.
The second one has to do with dissatisfaction with the official news media within Russia. People were already complaining about the never-ending propaganda in May, but starting in the summer, the cynical/ironical comments on previously pro-Putin news media like lenta.ru really became unstoppable; and then the draft still had to come. Since then, commenting on articles mostly has been blocked, and on the few occasions the comment section is opened, it is closed again (with the comments no longer visible) within a few hours due to this news item is no longer timely anymore.
As to the pro-Putin news media themselves, there are still the hardcore supporters for whom the West is literally the equivalent of the Devil (words of Medvedev, not mine), but in the case of others like lenta.ru and izvestia.ru, the art of tongue-in-cheek reporting ain't dead in Russia. Here's an example of today's TASS press agency: Russians’ level of trust in Putin rises to 78.5%, poll shows [tass.com]. Note how the article is immediately followed by a string of articles dating to February 2022, clearly showing the damage done to Russia by the Great Leader.