The bailiffs came at midnight. they turned off phones, e-mail and broadcasting equipment, and TV-6, the reincarnation of the independent NTV news team that so infuriated Vladimir Putin, went off the air last week in mid-sentence. As usual the government denied that the closure of an independent TV station had anything to do with politics.
The bailiffs were simply executing a court order, said Alexei Volin, a senior government spokesman, so "one should not talk about any change in the freedom of the press in Russia." Opposition politicians expressed the usual outrage, though this time there was a tinge...
