Vitaly Dymarskiy is an editorialist at the relatively independent Russian radio station Echos of Moscow.

In the run up to the legislative elections here there was a blacklist of speakers banned from talking to the media. It wasn't a formal register written up by censor organs; it was just known through word of mouth who you shouldn't speak to. Everybody branded as a critic of the authorities, the elections or Putin's party was on there. And of course all the members of the radical opposition like Kasparov, Kassianov, Rizkov and Limonov.

Mikhaïl Deliaguin was also on the list. Apparently the show's managers realised too late, only when the thing was being edited. But this happened a while ago - it's just resurfaced now in the US press because, in my opinion, the new president has brought around a feeling of change.

At the start of the noughties all the embarrassing journalists were ratted out [reference to the forced departures of reputed NTV journalists Kisselev and Parfenov]. Now, the big media companies, those that had an impact on the elections, have taken on censorship for themselves. All levels are "trained" in self-censorship, from the simple journalists through to the managing editors.