The Washington Post
Daniel Williams

A Moscow court today ordered the dissolution of TV-6, the last major independent television station in Russia, a decision that could wipe out the only broadcast voice consistently willing to air criticism of President Vladimir Putin's government.

The court ruled that the station, owned largely by exiled media and automobile magnate Boris Berezovsky, was financially unsound. It agreed with a suit filed by a minority shareholder, Lukoil petroleum company, to liquidate the firm.

The station was a refuge for journalists from another independent station, NTV, whose owner, Vladimir Gusinsky, was forced out last spring by Gazprom, the natural gas giant that is a major NTV shareholder. Gusinsky fled to Spain to escape corruption charges lodged by Putin's government. The dissolution of TV-6 effectively brings to heel two independent broadcast voices this year.

Although the court ruled on narrow economic grounds -- the station is in debt -- TV-6 employees said they suspected political maneuvering. Gazprom is partly owned by the government; Lukoil, Russia's largest oil company, deals closely with the Kremlin on important issues of export quotas and taxes. Lukoil officials declined to comment on the suit.

"There is no rule of law in this case," said Yevgeny Kiselyov, the station manager and the country's most popular political talk show host. "This is purely political."

TV-6 has six months to appeal, and Tatyana Blinova, a spokeswoman for the station, said the company would do so. Theoretically, the station can continue broadcasting during that period. However, the press ministry has the power to immediately revoke the broadcaster's license. "If it does that, we won't be able to go on broadcasting," Blinova said.

Political observer Otto Latsis said Putin has been trying recently to portray himself as a promoter of civil society and democracy. "The show is not convincing," Latsis said. "The media is the most accessible channel for daily dialogue between state and society. We all know what the state wants. The state used a corporation it controls to destroy NTV. Another corporation is putting pressure on TV-6."

State Department spokesman Richard A. Boucher said he could not address the specifics of the TV-6 case, but he stressed that the Bush administration continues to support the independence of the Russian media. "It remains the strong position of the United States that a free media is essential to the kind of modern democratic society that Russia wants to build," he said.

Despite an apparent atmosphere of lethargy in Russia surrounding the issue of media independence, Russian viewers apparently looked to TV-6 to get a view beyond Kremlin control. Newscasts on TV-6, which hardly anyone watched a year ago, shot to the front of Moscow's ratings race with the influx of NTV talent.

"Itogi," a political talk show hosted by Kiselyov, is television's highest-rated program. Ratings in Moscow are considered key to a station's performance, because the city is home to the country's political elite and the most lucrative market for advertisers. NTV's ratings have fallen, and currently trail both TV-6 and government-controlled ORT.

When Gusinsky operated NTV, Kremlin officials attacked the station's hard-hitting coverage of Putin's initiation and prosecution of the war in Chechnya. On occasion, the government barred its reporters from broadcasting from the separatist republic. In August 2000, NTV was the first and only station to report that the nuclear submarine Kursk, with 118 hands on board, sank because a torpedo exploded inside. Other stations offered the government version of the story: a collision with a U.S. submarine.

After Gusinsky's ouster, journalists from the station walked out and looked for work elsewhere. Berezovsky took them in. He seemed an unlikely choice for upholding standards of press independence. He had controlled the ORT station during the presidency of Boris Yeltsin, and employed newscasts and political talk shows to crush Kremlin opponents. He and Gusinsky were bitter rivals.

Under Putin, Berezovsky lost both his Kremlin entree and control of ORT. As government investigators looked into suspect financial dealings between Berezovsky and the airline Aeroflot, Berezovsky went into exile in France.

Berezovsky owns 75 percent of TV-6, but placed management responsibility in the hands of Gusinsky and Kiselyov, the station manager. A few months ago, when Lukoil first sued TV-6, Berezovsky said he did not "see any decisions here except those of a political nature."

(c) 2001 The Washington Post Company