The expulsion from the airwaves of a second American comedian since President Donald Trump took office in the United States should make every journalist who worked in Moscow during the early 2000s shudder. This is how President Vladimir Putin started to seize control – by targeting mainstream media, beginning with television and particularly TV comedians.
In 2000, Putin was very dissatisfied with the reporting he received on the NTV television network, where the journalists had been educated in Western institutions rather than Soviet ones, and who were critical of Putin and his conflict in Chechnya. He was especially irritated by the way he was depicted inKukly (Puppets), a television program created by liberal satirist Viktor Shenderovich, showcasing puppet versions of Russian political figures. It was the most-viewed show in the nation.
The Russian government initiated a comprehensive campaign against NTV, involving conducting raids on its parent media company. This led toKuklybeing removed from the air, along with other outcomes, including the departure of the main part of the NTV editorial team from the channel.
What was truly surprising was that numerous Russian liberal journalists and public intellectuals swiftly sought to justify the attack on NTV andKuklyThey intentionally overlooked the initial indicators of the oppressive regime Putin was establishing, rationalizing it by claiming the nation required improvement and needed to become powerful.
In Our Beloved Friends in Moscow, the book I co-wrote with Irina Borogan, we explain how a prominent Russian arts commentator named Alexander Arkhangelsky criticized the NTV channel in Izvestia—the newspaper we both were employed at—saying the channel had become dull. He also suggested that Shenderovich often obtained prior approval from his superiors for the show’s topics, which contradicted what Shenderovich stated.
Shenderovich, angered, replied with an open letter to the arts reviewer, which appeared in Izvestia. The two subsequently spoke, and Izvestia printed their discussion.
It was a dialogue between two highly courteous and knowledgeable individuals who had entirely lost the ability to comprehend one another. Shenderovich, in a foreboding manner, cautioned that 2000 might mirror 1929, the final year of limited freedom prior to Stalin’s reign of terror: “By settling our longstanding group disputes today, we run the risk of concluding our conversation in the same place where the right and left ‘deviationists’ [the term Stalin used to target his rivals] once found themselves.”
Shenderovich’s prediction came true during Putin’s leadership. Currently, Shenderovich resides in exile in Warsaw, labeled a “foreign agent” by the Russian authorities. His critic, Arkhangelsky, ironically, also ended up on the foreign agents list in November 2024.
Authoritarians often possess strong abilities in securing the support of a nation’s intellectuals. Once they achieve this, these intellectuals are willing to remain quiet or offer intellectual backing that can rationalize oppression.
“Uninteresting, poor reviews, they lost their sharpness” — we heard this frequently during the attack on NTV, and a very similar sentiment is now being used to support removing Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel from the air, primarily through social media by those with large followings.
But what made Russia’s intellectual elites accept such a role?
This absorption seems to rest on two primary foundations. The first, and the most apparent, is a pledge of access and the perception of impact within the Kremlin.
The second foundation involves leveraging feelings of resentment and fury towards individuals who hold prominent roles within the traditional media.
Numerous “dear friends” in Moscow who aligned with the opposing side shared their frustration regarding the liberal media. “I endured liberal censorship during the 1990s!” Pyotr Akopov stated.
He is the very same Akopov who, notoriously, had advocated for a “solution for the Ukrainian issuein 2022. His commentary was too extreme even for RIA Novosti and was removed. The other, Evgeny Krutikov, told me why he despised liberal journalists: “In the 90s, these people saw themselves as rulers of the world!
This is what the intellectuals from the opposing side claim, it seems — aiming, among other things, to occupy roles previously emptied of ideological opponents. For a short period, this strategy might succeed — but only for a brief time.
The truth is, these kinds of relationships don’t endure. In the end, even those intellectuals who supported Putin lost their entry into the Kremlin. Even our so-called “dear friends” acknowledged this. Ultimately, they ended up stuck in a nation isolated from the West and engaged in a savage, terrible conflict.
When Putin first took office, one of our senior, more seasoned colleagues penned an article for our website, titled: “Don’t delude yourselves – you can’t befriend a crocodile.”
He cautioned: The crocodile will consume you in the end. Your only option is to delay the inevitable.
