(MOSCOW) – Russian newspapers have marked the 74th birthday of Vladimir Putin with glowing tributes and a barrage of statistics, while remaining silent on the 20th anniversary of the murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
According to the BBC’s Russia Editor Steve Rosenberg, Russian newspapers on Wednesday published extensive coverage of Putin’s birthday, with Komsomolskaya Pravda gushing in praise of the national leader and exclaiming “Vladimir, our country has become your life.” A graphic displayed a whole batch of numbers to show how Putin has changed Russia over the last quarter of a century, including by increasing Russia’s territory.
The newspaper also detailed six of Putin’s hobbies: dogs, fishing, horses, ice hockey, judo and cars.
But one number absent from today’s Russian newspapers was 20. Twenty years ago today, one of Russia’s most prominent investigative journalists, Anna Politkovskaya, was murdered. She was gunned down in the stairwell of her Moscow apartment block.
Anna worked as a special correspondent for the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, writing about human rights abuses, corruption and the wars in Chechnya. The New York Times reported in October 2006 that she was killed with a pistol, shot in the body and then in the head, in what Russian police and criminals refer to as a “controlling shot” .
According to Rosenberg, he could not find anything in today’s Russian newspapers marking the 20th anniversary of her killing. However, he visited Novaya Gazeta on Tuesday and saw Anna’s desk, which remains untouched, almost like a shrine. A memorial plaque that had been put up at her apartment block has been torn off, but some people in Russia are trying to keep her memory alive.
The International Federation of Journalists has documented that 17 journalists have been murdered in Russia since 2005, with five murders remaining unsolved . The organisation noted that while some perpetrators have been tried, “the masterminds behind those crimes remain free.”
Rosenberg also noted that Russian national newspapers are still not covering the situation in the Kotsk region and the death of a lab worker at the plague research institute. He described this as odd because the Kremlin has been commenting on it, Russia’s public health watchdog has been issuing statements, and there has been international reaction including from the US government.
On the rising cost of living in Russia, Rosenberg cited a joke from the humour section of Komsomolskaya Pravda: “The automatic door of the shop didn’t open. It’s the first time a supermarket chain has assessed my purchasing power so accurately.”
Meanwhile, Russian newspapers reported that Russia’s defence budget for 2027 will be 17.15 trillion rubles (approximately $200 billion), around 27 percent higher than originally planned. According to Vesti, 40 percent of utility infrastructure in Russia is heavily worn out, with heating pipes in some areas between 70 and 80 percent degraded. Residents in dozens of Russian towns are reporting low temperatures in their flats despite the start of the heating season.
In 2026, elevator manufacturers faced a serious decrease in the number of orders, with the volume of installed lifts almost halving in annual terms to 18,300 due to the slowdown in housing construction.
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