A recently published book entitled “The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin” written by a journalist Steven Lee Myers, has been this week’s The New York Times’ Editors Choice, and is widely referred to as the “most informative and extensive so far in English”.
The author, quoting Sergei Pugachev from an interview conducted in 2014, wrote the following in regards to the 2001 seizure of the television channel NTV by the Russian State:
“…After 11 day occupation by the channel’s journalists, they gave up and new management took over. Many at home and abroad registered protest, to no avail…Putin from the start understood the importance of television to the Kremlin’s authority – of it’s ability to shape not only his image, but the reality of Russia itself…[Putin] considered the state networks a ‘natural resource’ as precious as oil or gas. “He understands that the basis of power in Russia is not the army, not the police, it’s the television.””