Kiselyov hoped his staff would find a haven at TV-6

The whole situation was shockingly similar to the one we found ourselves in less than a year ago, on 14 April 2001, with NTV.

Then too I was called in the middle of the night and told that station's security staff had been replaced, and that new bosses appointed by the state gas monopoly, Gazprom, had appeared in the offices.

Then about 300 people, headed by Yevgeny Kiselyov, quit the channel, crossing over to TV-6 in the hope that there we would find a haven, and a chance to work in the way we thought necessary.

We arrived at a marginal television station, with an average daily rating of between 4% to 6% of the audience, but after a few months of concerted effort it had became one of the country's leading broadcasters.

Hunting the enemy

At TV-6 we sincerely believed, to begin with, that the authorities would not bother to pursue those they had conquered at NTV - at such great cost to their reputation - and would give itself and others a chance to correct the monstrous mistake of April 2001.

However, we probably underestimated the vengeful inertia of the state machine.

With maniacal persistence the authorities are hunting down those they consider their enemies while destroying, perhaps, the only unarguable achievement of Russia's years of reform, freedom of speech.

Unfortunately, this mania does not have a single face.

It is not Vladimir Putin, nor the Media Minister, Mikhail Lesin, nor the head of the Federal Security Service, Nikolai Patrushev, nor the prosecutor-general Vladimir Ustinov.

It is all of them together - and also dozens of investigators, prosecutors, and officials of the government and presidential administration.

Individually and as a group they continue to lie and state that the conflict, initially with NTV, and now with TV-6 is no more than, in Vladimir Putin's words, an "argument between economic entities".

Looking ahead

The argument will continue.

From Tuesday, TV-6 news bulletins will be broadcast in audio on the airwaves of our partners and friends at the Moscow Echo radio station.

On Thursday, we hope the new 000 TV-6, founded by the station's journalists, will be registered.

Then on 27 March we will compete for the licence to broadcast on our channel.

The licences, however, are awarded by the same vengeful and faceless state.