The Observer reports:

On the ninth day of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, editor-in-chief Viktor Muchnik gathered the staff of TV2 for a meeting at their small newsroom in the Siberian city of Tomsk.

New wartime laws meant the whole newsroom risked jailtime for reporting on the conflict, Muchnik told them, and TV2 had just been officially blocked by Russia’s communications watchdog, along with many other independent media outlets.

“All of us who wanted to change things for the better here, at this moment we can feel we have failed,” said Muchnik, reflecting bitterly on his three decades of work at one of Russia’s most resilient media outlets.

The journalists drained glasses of wine, and almost everybody cried. Then Muchnik signed resignation papers for the entire collective. A few days later, he and his wife, Viktoria, who also worked for TV2 for more than a quarter of a century, packed a couple of suitcases and flew out of Russia, probably for ever.

“One reason was professional: the thing you’ve been doing for so long has been killed. The other one was human. Neither of us wanted to be inside this space, in this country which has launched a war, and living among people who support this war,” said Muchnik, in an interview in the Armenian capital Yerevan, where the couple now live, along with tens of thousands of Russians who have fled in the weeks since the war began.

For years, TV2 was an anomaly in the Russian media landscape, an island of media freedom in the Siberian university town of Tomsk. From its chaotic yet idealistic beginnings as the Soviet Union collapsed, through various gritty battles with authorities, culminating in fury, defiance and ultimately defeat, the history of TV2 gives remarkable insight into Russia’s last three decades. [Continue reading…]