Journalism in Russia has effectively become a criminal offense. Tikhon Dzyadko has been sentenced in absentia to 8 years in prison under charges of spreading “military fake news” and “evading the obligations of a foreign agent.”

The editor-in-chief of TV Rain is essentially being prosecuted for trying to report what the authorities want to hide. The criminal case was based on materials about the mass killings of civilians in Bucha and Irpin. Another accusation concerns the absence of the mandatory “foreign agent” label on publications. In addition to the prison sentence, the journalist was fined 250,000 rubles and banned from administering internet resources for four years.

The particular cynicism of this case lies in the fact that TV Rain was never a giant state-controlled media machine with billions in funding and nationwide reach. It was one of the last independent television channels in Russia, operating without Kremlin propaganda guidelines and trying to preserve the right to independently analyze events in Russia and around the world.

Yet even such a channel became смертельно dangerous for Vladimir Putin’s system. Because a dictatorship can survive corruption, poverty, and war — but it cannot survive the truth. Independent journalists destroy the very foundation of today’s Russian власти: total lies.

If free media had not been crushed at the beginning of Putin’s rule, it would have been far more difficult to sell society myths about “Nazis” in Ukraine, justify wars and repression, and hide how the country’s enormous natural wealth ended up under the control of a narrow circle of people whose main qualification is personal loyalty to power.

Today in Russia, a journalist is no longer simply a profession — it is a target. Because every authoritarian system fears above all those who dare to speak the truth aloud.

Source: the Telegram channel “Politzek-Info” https://t.me/politzekinfo/9378