Kremlin Lets Up in Siege of Media

After numerous signs in recent weeks of an impending government crackdown on the Russian press for its unflattering coverage of the Russian invasion of Chechnya, a new wind is blowing from the Kremlin.


The nation's leaders seem to have realized the uselessness of "shooting the messenger," to use the words of popular commentator Yevgeny Kiselyov. They say openly that the hour of reckoning is nigh for the hawks who planned the campaign in Chechnya so poorly that the tiny region has been able to hold off the Russian Army for almost six weeks.


Just a few weeks ago, President Boris Yeltsin accused the Russian press of accepting Chechen money in exchange for slanting its coverage, and Nationalities Minister Nikolai Yegorov reportedly threatened to "turn the guns on Russian television" after the Russian troops come back from Chechnya.


But on Monday, Yeltsin's chief of staff, Sergei Filatov, said "the government is itself to blame for the way the press treated it."


Echoing Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin's remarks last week, Filatov said "a time of analysis and assessment is coming" for the operation's planners. In the blame game that is sure to follow the Chechen campaign, the press is not on the list of culprits, not least because of Western nations' concern that Russia might deviate from the path of reforms.


"European leaders have expressed this concern, and we've begun every meeting with them by reassuring them there is no return to a totalitarian system and no halt to reforms," Filatov said, referring to his ongoing negotiations with the Council of Europe on the admission of Russia to the organization.


Authoritative reports earlier this month that Russian Television chief Oleg Poptsov was close to being fired and that NTV, the only private nationwide news channel, was about to lose its broadcasting licence, created a sense that Yeltsin was preparing to hit out against the media.


But no official confirmation of the reports came. Despite the unprecedented barrage of criticism from government officials, both Poptsov and NTV stars such as Kiselyov kept their jobs and were free to go on the air and criticize the government.


"I am surprised that there wasn't more repression than there has been," said Lawrence Uzzell, who monitors the Russian media for the U.S. non-profit Jamestown Foundation.


After Yeltsin congratulated journalists on their national press day earlier this month and stressed their role in aiding reforms, his aides have been full of praise for the Fourth Estate.


"The press is society's eyes and ears," Filatov said. "It should be helped and not hampered."


Filatov's tone sharply differed from that of an article in the government newspaper, Rossiiskaya Gazeta, last week, which claimed that "from the first day of the war, the Fourth Estate has fought on (Chechen President Dzhokhar) Dudayev's side."


The article, reminiscent of Soviet press attacks on dissidents, alarmed many analysts. But it appeared to be the last holdover from the time when military failures were often blamed on the press.


Even critics of the Russian media feel that a straightforward crackdown on the press is now unlikely.


Political scientist Andranik Migranyan, a Presidential Council member who has called the Russian press "the world's most irresponsible," said after the confrontation caused by the war an increase in mutual respect between the government and the press is more likely than a crackdown.


"A lot depends on the press, and the government realizes that," Migranyan said. "I see a sense of mutual responsibility developing between the two."


However, Uzzell of the Jamestown Foundation said the government was unlikely to completely give up on plans to control the media. He pointed out that the government still subsidizes much of the Russian press, and the printing facilities and newsprint factories are largely state-controlled.


"I see Yeltsin and Chernomyrdin using their control of this infrastructure to make life increasingly difficult for the media," Uzzell said.