“Project” and “important stories” – non -profit publications, exist on foreign grants, these are a clear Western agents. “Medusa” – registered in Latvia, The Insider, too (plus partners of the spy Bellingcat – everything is clear with them). Khodorkovsky media – well, they are enemies by definition.
But there were still independent Russian media, which do not fit into this paradigm. Media, which are registered in Russia and live on income received in Russia – from advertising, subscriptions, small donates. One of these media is the rain.
“Rain” publishes reports, which shows that the receipts from foreign sources in previous periods were, but were tiny. The “sources” of RIA Novosti reported that they counted 3.7 million rubles of foreign financing from rain in 2016-2020. This is 740 thousand rubles a year, 61 thousand rubles a month – taking into account taxes and contributions, it will not be enough even for the salary of one correspondent. Even if we proceed from the (incorrect) logic that the influence of money necessarily comes, this influence on the rain was so scanty that it would be impossible to notice it.
It is also important that it is the “source” who regards foreign financing, I quote:
“- November 2019- February 2020 526 thousand rubles through the Moscow time culture and education Fund from Zimin Projects Ltd 🇲🇹
– November 2020 – June 2020 252 thousand rubles through the Arithmetic of Good charity fund from Stonex Financial Ltd 🇬🇧 and Fondation d’Enterprise Sanofi ESP 🇫🇷
– December 2020 240 thousand rubles through the Fund for the Development of the Polytechnic Museum from SA Ing Belgium 🇧🇪 and others.
– April 2016 – January 2018 2.7 million rubles through the Sakharovsky Center (Foreign Agent) from Charles Stewart Moti Foundation 🇺🇸 MacArthur Foundation🇺🇸 and others. “
That is, “rain” received money for projects from Russian persons, including the Development Fund of the State Polytechnic Museum (!) Or the Arithmetic of Good charity fund, and the security forces found “foreign financing” from these organizations and attributed it to the rain. In some cases, it is not clear what kind of money it is and what they have to do with rain, because, for example, SA Ing Belgium is a stupid Belgian bank, a British Stonex is a financial platform.
I think, according to this logic, if Gazprom paid the media, the media can be recognized as a foreign agent, because Gazprom receives money for the sale of gas to foreigners.
In general, it became finally clear that this conditional Lubyan old man, whose eyes we are trying to look at the situation, does not see any difference between independent media, he actually does not give a damn about who is financed and how. That’s not the point. He just knows that the elections are soon, it is afraid of protests after the opening of falsifications and generously distributes black marks to all journalists who can talk about these falsifications and illuminate protests. “Rain” one of them. All this is a powerful signal: “After the election, sit quietly!”
Along the way, the elder finishes the remnants of free media so that no one prevents him from calmly living in the cool silence of his office for another five, ten, fifteen years.
“ВЧК ОГПУ”
