BBC Russian: 80 Years of Resilience Against Censorship

The Kremlin is tightening its grip over what Russians can do and see online, making it harder for outlets like the BBC to reach their audiences.

For the past 80 years BBC Russian has sought to bypass those restrictions, which for decades featured jamming of its short-wave radio broadcasts and now involve blocking its website.

The latest restrictions in Russia have included widespread mobile internet outages and a reported plan to block the Telegram news and messaging app.

On 24 March 1946, the BBC started its first regular radio broadcast in the Russian language aiming at giving listeners behind the Iron Curtain in the Soviet Union an alternative to state propaganda and a tightly controlled cultural scene.

By 1949, jamming of the signal was already the norm.

For almost half the 20th Century, Soviet people had to jump through hoops to listen to foreign broadcasts, and for some it was truly a sport, remembers Natalia Rubinstein, an ex-BBC presenter and former resident of Leningrad, or modern-day St Petersburg.

We really wanted to know what was being hidden from us, she says.

Rubinstein remembers how people who were fond of cross-country skiing – a very popular pastime in winter in Russia – used to take their radios with them out of town, where there were fewer jammers.

I still have this picture before my eyes: a person leaning on a tree, with ski poles next to him, listening to the radio somehow nestled on their chest, she recalls.

The jamming of foreign broadcasts was pioneered by Nazi Germany during World War Two, using noise or signals from more powerful transmitters located closer to the listeners.

During the Cold War, the BBC would repeat its 90-minute Russian-language bulletin three times a week, so people could listen at least once.

It was not all news: Soviets could tune in to Western rock music, hear extracts from banned literature and even, for a brief time, take part in quizzes.

My dad used to listen to the 'enemy voices' at night, reads one post on a forum dedicated to foreign-broadcast listeners.

According to a CIA memo from 1960, not every broadcast was blocked. Stories about life in Britain or the US went on air without interference, but discussions of global conflicts or reports on the economic and political life in the Socialist bloc were always jammed.

Occasionally, BBC Russian succeeded in outfoxing the jammers. Peter Udell, who ran the BBC's East European service remembers what happened when Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev died in 1982.

For decades, the BBC Russian team had only a faint idea of who their audience was. Finally now they were getting some feedback.

It was around that time that BBC Russian moved into its first office in Moscow, and by 2022, together with the team in London, the service had grown to more than 100 journalists competing with the best independent media in the country. Although the original platform of radio broadcasts had by now given way to the website and social media.

In the final week of February, as Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, BBC Russian's audience more than trebled in size, reaching 10 million people.

On 4 March 2022, the BBC's website, as well as those of other main independent and foreign media, were blocked in Russia, accused of spreading false information of public interest.

New laws meant it was now illegal even to call the invasion a war, contradicting the official term special military operation.

That change has come at a real personal cost to every member of the BBC Russian team. Eight BBC Russian journalists have been declared foreign agents by the Russian state, a status that recalls Soviet-era campaigns against enemies of the people and almost inevitably leads to criminal prosecution.

In the four years since the war began, Russia's digital Iron Curtain has become increasingly hard to bypass. One poll suggests 36% of Russians use virtual private networks to get around the blockade, but Russia's internet watchdog is never far behind, blocking VPNs as they become popular.

Despite the challenges, Russians continue to seek the truth. Today, BBC Russian reaches up to 12 million people a week, proving the enduring need for independent journalism in the nation.