Ukraine’s removal of the independent Russian Dozhd TV from cable networks elicited angry responses and accusations of ’censorship’ from at least two international NGOs, neither of whom fully addressed the reason for the restrictions imposed, or what they did not entail. Freedom House and the Committee to Protect Journalists might have taken warning from the haste with which top Kremlin officials decided to shout about ‘censorship’ against a channel that the current Russian regime has repeatedly tried to destroy.

News of the National Broadcasting Council’s decision on Jan. 12 certainly came as a shock. Dozhd is one of the only independent TV channels in Russia, and an important platform for civic activists, opposition politicians and those willing to tell the truth about, among other things, politically-motivated arrests in Crimea and the Kremlin-backed militants in Donbas.

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