Couldn't live there anymore: Russian journalist fled the country due to censorship

On the ninth day of Russia's war in Ukraine, TV2 editor-in-chief Viktor Muchnik gathered the staff for a meeting at their small newsroom in the Siberian city of Tomsk. What he told them and why he left Russia, the publication said The Guardian.

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The new wartime laws mean the entire newsroom is at risk of jail time for covering the conflict, Muchnik told them, and TV2 has just been officially blocked by Russia's communications oversight agency, along with many other independent media outlets.

“All of us who wanted to change something for the better here feel at this moment that we have failed,” the journalist remarked bitterly reflecting on his thirty years of work in one of the most enduring Russian media.

The journalists drank wine, and almost everyone was crying. Then Muchnik signed a letter of resignation of the entire team. A few days later, he and his wife Victoria, who also worked for TV2 for more than a quarter of a century, packed a couple of suitcases and flew out of Russia, probably forever.

“One of the reasons was professional: what you did for so long was killed. The other is purely human. None of us wanted to be inside this space, in this country that unleashed a war, and live among people who support this war, ”Muchnik explained.

Now he lives in the capital of Armenia, Yerevan.

For years, TV2 has been an anomaly in the Russian media landscape, an island of media freedom in the Siberian university town of Tomsk. From a chaotic but idealistic start when the Soviet Union collapsed, through various bitter battles with the authorities, culminating in fury, defiance and ultimately defeat, TV2's story provides a remarkable insight into Russia's last three decades.

The channel was the brainchild of Arkady Maiofis, a Soviet television reporter who wanted to create a space for free debate in 1991, when the Soviet Union was on its last legs. At that time, Muchnik was a young history professor who was fascinated by the idea of ​​creating political programs.

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“Arkady was the only one who knew something about television - the rest came straight from the street. We had one VHS camera, we made programs and carried them to the TV tower, ”recalls the journalist.

For entertainment, the channel showed American films: they found pirated cassettes on the market and aired them safely, ignoring copyright issues.

The channel came into its own in August 1991 during a coup by reactionary forces who wanted to restore hard Soviet power. When the central TV channels went offline, TV2 journalists got the information by calling friends in Moscow and relaying the latest news to viewers in Tomsk. TV2 later sent a two-person film crew to Moscow to cover the events. The journalists returned the cassettes by pilots to Tomsk.

It so happened that viewers in the very heart of Siberia received more up-to-date information than those who watched it at home in Moscow.

In Boris Yeltsin's Russia, the channel's journalists felt they were riding a wave of freedom. Local politicians were not very fond of TV2, but found it necessary to come to the studio for interviews.

But then, when Vladimir Putin became president in 2000, things began to slowly change.

“I didn’t like him from the very beginning. I didn’t like his past in the KGB, I didn’t like his smile and manner of speaking, ”Muchnik emphasized.

Gradually, the space for freedom began to narrow. It didn't help that the channel was bought by oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who kept his promise not to meddle in editorial politics but left the authorities suspicious that the channel was his personal mouthpiece.

By this time, TV2 was a media holding with several radio stations and two TV channels. The nine-story building to house the media group was under construction when Khodorkovsky was arrested in 2003 as a sign of Putin's intention to keep the oligarchs out of politics.

TV2 survived Khodorkovsky's arrest, but pressure on independent media continued to mount. In 2007, the channel received a series of informal warnings from Moscow.

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“It was clearly said: if you want to attack the mayor, that's fine; if you want to attack the governor, it's almost okay, but please don't attack Putin," Muchnik explained.

“But how do you not involve Putin if you want to do journalism in our wonderful country? If you have any problems, you will soon come to the Kremlin, because this is how the system works,” he said.

The channel continued to receive opposition figures when they visited Tomsk, such as Boris Nemtsov and Alexei Navalny, who were excluded from most Russian TV channels.

At the end of 2013, TV2 sent a team of reporters to Kyiv to cover the first shoots of the Maidan revolution and produce reports on the subsequent annexation of Crimea that were very different from those broadcast on state television.

“Our reports alienated us not only from the authorities, but also from part of our audience, which began to write insults to us,” Muchnik said.

A month later, the channel was taken off the air due to alleged technical problems, and at the end of 2014 it was officially closed. TV2 has gone from being a media holding with over 250 employees to a website run by a team of 15 people. The authorities refused to register the website as a media outlet, meaning they were barred from attending press conferences or soliciting official comments.

Despite this, TV2 continued to exert influence beyond its modest means. During the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors called TV2 journalists about a disaster that did not exist on state television. People sent footage of patients lying on the floor due to lack of beds.

The site published several stories related to COVID-19: a man who disguised himself as a doctor to care for his grandmother and recorded the terrible conditions in the hospital while doing so; and a family who were told their grandmother had died, but when they opened the coffin, they found the body of a stranger.

Working in such conditions was difficult, but possible. And then the invasion of Ukraine in February changed the rules of the game.

Russia's new "fake" law meant that the entire newsroom could go to jail for covering events. Under these conditions, Muchnik decided to stop broadcasting.

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“We could not convey to people what was happening in their own country, and this hurts me,” complains TV2 cameraman Alexander Sakalov. “People don't want to know. They need flowers and birds. Now all the independent media in the country will be closed, and people will get what they wanted.”

Now from Yerevan, the Muchniks keep in touch with journalists from other independent regional publications, who also fled Russia in an attempt to coordinate further work. In addition, they are working on a project called "Witnesses" asking Russians about their attitude to the war and how this decision has changed their lives. Some of them have fled, but others are still in Russia and refuse even anonymous interviews.

“Some people find it important to show their face despite the risks. If you go to a rally, you can simply be arrested and no one will see you, but for them this is a way to say that they do not agree with this war, ”Victoria added.

Many interviewees told the Muchniks that they fell out with their families over their resistance to the war, and Victoria had similarly difficult conversations with her own 82-year-old mother, who mostly watches state television.

“She was so upset when we left. Mom really wanted us to stay and said: “Why did you talk so much, you couldn’t just remain silent?”

Like many recent Russian émigrés, the Muchniks are bitterly disappointed that their long years of work have not led to the creation of another Russia, and chagrined that they had no choice but to flee.

They hope they can continue to influence politics in Russia from outside the country, but are adamant that they will not return until political change occurs.

“It is very difficult to exist in this atmosphere of militaristic hysteria. We will not go back until the regime collapses,” Viktor concluded.

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