It was bound to happen. All dissentient voices for truth, however soft, have to be eliminated because the lies told by Putin’s régime are so ludicrously implausible that even faintly objective reporting arouses his ire. As just reported, the latest victim is Ekho Moskvy, the radio station, which began its life in the heady days of August 1990 and has gradually been squeezed off the air waves. Despite challenging the legal authorities, it now has to fold. As the business paper Vedomosti tells us, the television equivalent, Dozhd’, has not been able to transmit for some time. The last remaining newspaper with any independence of mind is Novaya gazeta, which still sails dangerously close to the wind. By choking the expression of opinion, Putin evidently hopes that the truth will not get through to the public; that he can crush anti-Russia, as he calls Ukraine, before a movement mobilises in the street and overwhelms the régime, while his forty mile convoy of fire power gets stuck in the mud en route to Kyiv.