At the beginning of 2014, a united editorial office was created at RBC , but now it has actually collapsed. This is the decision of RBC shareholder Mikhail Prokhorov, made under pressure from officials, Vedomosti sources in the holding claim.

Friday, May 13, was the last working day for the editor-in-chief of the joint editorial office of RBC Elizaveta Osetinskaya, the editor-in-chief of the RBC website Roman Badanin and the editor-in-chief of the RBC newspaper Maxim Solyus. More than a dozen other employees (chief editor of RBC magazine Valery Igumenov, deputy editors-in-chief and department editors, as well as special correspondents) announced on the same day that out of solidarity they were leaving the holding company and working only until June 30. Until this date, Irina Malkova, Badanin’s deputy, will remain in charge of the united editorial office, then she will also leave. Formally, Malkov will not be appointed acting editor-in-chief, RBC CEO Nikolai Molibog assured.

Officially, Molibog stated that the change of RBC editors was his decision: “The general director and the editorial board could not reach a consensus on some important issues.” He did not provide details.

Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov said that the departure of RBC's editorial management was not related to pressure from the authorities. Previously, he denied that the Kremlin interferes in the editorial policy of the media, and insisted that RBC was well aware of this.

Deputy Minister of Communications and Mass Communications Alexei Volin said that there is no political motive in changing the RBC team, this is an economic issue: “The holding’s managers generated losses, not profits.” Volin did not explain why the shareholder changes the editorial board, and not the general or commercial director.

In 2015, RBC's revenue increased by 3% and amounted to RUB 5.1 billion. In 2014, RBC had an operating loss, in 2015 the business became operationally profitable (RUB 13 million), and the holding’s audience grew due to mobile users (see diagram). But due to long-standing debt inherited from the holding’s previous shareholders, RBC’s net loss amounted to 4.7 billion rubles. Prokhorov has owned a controlling stake in RBC since July 2010; the remaining shares are in free circulation on the Moscow Exchange. In November 2012, Derk Sauer, the founder of the Sanoma Independent Media publishing house, which formerly included Vedomosti, began managing the business. Sauer invited Osetinskaya, whom he knew from Vedomosti, to RBC.

Osetinskaya replaced a significant part of the journalists on the website, in the newspaper and in the magazine: former employees of Vedomosti, Forbes magazine, Kommersant, etc. came to work at RBC. In addition to business news, RBC began to publish more and more socio-political news, which were especially popular RBC anti-corruption investigations, in particular about people close to Russian President Vladimir Putin: his alleged daughter Katerina Tikhonova, her alleged husband Kirill Shamalov, etc.

It was these investigations, as well as the coverage of the Ukrainian issue, that greatly irritated officials, primarily employees of the Russian Presidential Administration, according to Vedomosti’s interlocutors in RBC and Onexim, as well as in the Russian government. Those involved in investigations often complained about RBC to the administration, primarily to the first deputy head of the presidential administration, Vyacheslav Volodin. Molibog, Sauer, Onexim employees and Prokhorov himself received calls from the administration demanding a change in RBC’s editorial policy, Vedomosti’s interlocutors claim.

Sauer acted as an intermediary between shareholders and top managers, on the one hand, and the editors, on the other. He told the editors about the dissatisfaction of officials, but never asked to abandon any investigations, RBC employees say: “He was always on our side, we, as journalists, are simply doing our job.”

Sauer became the first victim. On June 22, 2015, RBC published a column by the director of the Center for Research of Industrial Society, Vyacheslav Inozemtsev, who found signs of emerging fascism in the Russian state system. Demonstrators began to gather at the RBC building with the slogans “Sauer is a NATO agent,” RBC employees recall. LDPR Chairman Vladimir Zhirinovsky demanded Sauer’s resignation. Sauer resigned as chairman of the board of directors of RBC and became vice president of Onexim, but unofficially continued to work with RBC. He confirmed to Vedomosti that he left due to pressure from the authorities. Sauer did not answer calls on Friday and the weekend.

Several more RBC publications caused a strong reaction from officials, but the escalation occurred in early April due to an article about Panamanian offshore companies, the editorial office said. RBC did not participate in the investigation, but after its publication by other media outlets, it published the text on the front page of the newspaper and accompanied it with a photo of Putin. Prokhorov received several calls from angry employees of the presidential administration, RBC employees said.

RBC played the game, froze with articles about offshore companies, says a high-ranking official: the Kremlin is convinced that this was a well-thought-out scheme, that the English text of the investigation was drawn up in such a way that legally there is no fault, but the calculation was that it would be picked up by the Russian media, incorrect and rude they will interpret, add emotions, create a fuss. RBC unwittingly participated in this provocation - they must be held accountable for this, the official explains: “This is a war. What did you want?

Many were surprised by how RBC got involved in covering the offshore scandal: in those days, the RBC website was similar to reports from the opposition website, says another official. RBC wanted to be ahead of the rest, of course, for the sake of traffic, but this cannot be explained to officials, he continues: they see conspiracy theories and political motives in everything. Other media did not participate so actively; even Reuters was more balanced; they were interested not only in Putin, the official concludes.

According to the former deputy head of the internal policy department of the presidential administration, Alexei Chesnakov, one of the most important reasons for the resignation of management was that RBC had ceased to be a systemic resource in the eyes of other players in the media market. It is impossible to be a business publication, engage in high-profile political investigations and hope for a calm attitude from competitors, Chesnakov explains: “Why is RBC allowed to do this, but we are not? Prokhorov - he’s not a stranger to the system, is he? Either ban everyone, or allow it. Should the Kremlin create equal conditions? So the Kremlin creates them. Nothing personal.".

Strange searches
A representative of the FSB said that the searches were carried out in connection with the criminal case of the Tavrichesky bank, the sanator of which is the MFK bank, 47% owned by Prokhorov....
Read in full

Strange searches

An FSB representative said that the searches were carried out in connection with the criminal case of the Tavrichesky bank, the sanator of which is the MFK bank, 47% owned by Prokhorov. The FSB representative did not explain why companies not related to the financial market were searched in the Tavrichesky case. People close to Onexim connect those searches with RBC publications.

In mid-April, the police, the FSB and the Federal Tax Service conducted searches and seizures of documents at the head office of Onexim and companies controlled by it - but not at RBC - in connection with possible tax evasion (see sidebar).

Even before these searches, Osetinskaya announced that in the fall she would begin studying at Stanford University in the USA. She announced to the team that she would manage the editorial office until August, but after searches it became known that she would hand over management in May.

And after the May holidays, it became known that the Main Investigation Department of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Moscow opened a criminal case regarding the theft of 25% of the shares of Byte Telecom, a former subsidiary of RBC. Molibog said the deal was completely legal.

The day after the news about the criminal case, on May 12, the RBC newspaper published a text that oysters would be bred opposite Putin’s so-called palace in Gelendzhik. More calls from shareholders followed, RBC employees say, and in the evening of the same day Molibog announced that he was dismissing the editor-in-chief of the RBC newspaper Solyus. Osetinskaya and Badanin immediately announced that they were also leaving, and most of the editors also decided to leave. At the request of Molibog, supported by the outgoing editors-in-chief, these employees will remain until June 30 so that RBC continues to live. They promise to work according to the same principles as before.

“Mikhail Dmitrievich [Prokhorov] is a fairly independent person, but maybe he decided that he had enough headaches,” a Kremlin source told Vedomosti.

“The management of RBC was repeatedly warned, and everything seemed to begin to calm down, but the article about oysters pissed someone off, so the Kremlin reacted quickly and harshly,” explains a person close to the Kremlin. “Outside of the alternative, wait it out and not publish the investigation or fundamentally ignore what was being negotiated in the presidential administration, they apparently preferred the latter, and the authorities had to react unexpectedly and harshly.”

Two interlocutors close to RBC say that it was Solyus who was the first to resign - officials were accustomed to watching the TV channel and reading a paper newspaper, not a website. Several other interlocutors reported that the text about oysters was just a reason for dismissal. Solyus is also convinced that his dismissal is related to Prokhorov’s problems due to RBC’s editorial policy. “This policy and, in particular, my tenure as editor-in-chief of the RBC newspaper reduce the chances of a successful outcome of the ‘dispute between business entities’ for Prokhorov’s entire business,” he wrote on his Facebook.

Badanin joined Molibog's statement about differences in views on editorial policy. Osetinskaya noted that she is grateful to the shareholder, Sauer and Molibog for the opportunity to do honest journalism for 2.5 years and that she is proud of the team.

Pyotr Kozlov, Margarita Papchenkova and Alexandra Terentyeva contributed to the preparation of this article.

Strange searches A representative of the FSB said that the searches were carried out in connection with the criminal case of the Tavrichesky bank, the sanator of which is the MFK bank, 47% owned by Prokhorov.... Read in full

Strange searches
A representative of the FSB said that the searches were carried out in connection with the criminal case of the Tavrichesky bank, the sanator of which is the MFK bank, 47% owned by Prokhorov....
Read in full

RBC not approved for reading