One of Russia's largest private banks, Stolichny, has cut off a major credit line to the Segodnya newspaper, but the influential daily's editor said Friday that he had secured a promise from another backer to make up for the shortfall.


Editor Dmitry Ostalsky said that Stolichny had accounted for half the funds his newspaper received from outside backers, while the other half had come from the powerful Most Group.


Ostalsky said he had obtained a commitment from Most to provide the support Stolichny has denied.


"Stolichny's announcement came as a surprise to both us and Most," Ostalsky said in a telephone interview. "So it's hard to say how it will work out technically, but Most is committed to supporting Segodnya."


Most spokesperson Tatyana Brilyakova confirmed that Ostalsky had received "verbal consent" from the Most management to expand its backing, though she said that a formal agreement had not yet been signed.


Stolichny spokesman Sergei Meshcheryakov said the withdrawal of funding from the newspaper was the result of a shift in the bank's policy toward the mass media.


"We took part in setting up the newspaper," he said. "But we decided to stop financing it because we think the mass media should be independent from commercial structures as well as from the government."


"If the government and private companies continue supporting the media, they will remain in their present pitiful state," he said, referring to widespread corruption in the press which recently led the Russian Journalists' Union to introduce a moral code threatening journalists with ostracism for accepting kickbacks from companies.


But Meshcheryakov admitted that preserving the media's purity and independence was not the only reason why Stolichny cut off its support of Segodnya."Publishing a newspaper in this country is a money-losing business," he said.


Ostalsky added that Stolichny might be trying to avoid the political repercussions that strong media connections might entail.


"It's possible that they didn't want their name associated with our independent stand on some issues," he said. He did not elaborate.


Ostalsky said that the Most Group had not infringed on the newspaper's editorial independence, and that he did not expect that to change under the new funding agreement. He added that though his newspaper still depended on the support of outside investors, it was gradually becoming more self-sufficient.


Stolichny on Thursday also announced that it would no longer finance NTV, Russia's first private television network. But Marina Shakhova, a spokesperson for NTV, said Friday that it had not received credits from Stolichny since March and that it wasn't worried about the consequences of the bank's decision.


"We view our relationship with Stolichny quite calmly," she said. "Our main source of financing is advertising revenues, anyway."