GREATLY EXAGGERATED?…

At the same time, some within Russia’s beleaguered community of pro-democracy activists worried that the Bush administration’s “pragmatic” approach to Russia policy might mean a revival of realpolitik at the expense of issues like the fate of Russia’s fledgling democratic institutions, including its free press. In his New York Times interview, Bush seemed aware of such worries. Asked whether Putin’s Russia was heading in the wrong direction, Bush answered: “Well, you mean in terms of, for example, stifling free press? Yeah, that concerns me.” (“As much as I’d like to stifle it occasionally,” he added, to the apparent amusement of his interviewer.)

The U.S. president-elect’s words were well timed. Shortly after his interview was published, Anton Titov, head of finance of the embattled Media-Most group, was arrested during an interrogation at the Prosecutor General’s Office. Titov was accused of large-scale fraud–the same charges brought against Vladimir Gusinsky, Media-Most’s founder and chief, who is currently under house arrest in Spain, awaiting possible extradition to Moscow. Titov was jailed in Butyrka, the notorious Moscow remand prison where Gusinsky was briefly incarcerated after being arrested last May. The prosecutors also summoned Vladimir Tsimailo, Gusinsky first deputy, for questioning, thereby preventing him from traveling to London for a meeting with potential Western investors. Indeed, many observers detected a causal link between the prosecutors’ new burst of activity in relation to Media-Most and reports that CNN founder Ted Turner was negotiating to buy a 25 percent-plus-one-share stake in NTV, Media-Most’s flagship television channel.