They offered three million a month - Venediktov claims that he bargained with the Kremlin
Before closing the liberal radio station Ekho Moskvy, the authorities allegedly offered its editor-in-chief Alexei Venediktov a highly paid position in one of the state corporations.
He himself stated this in an interview with scandalous TV journalist Ksenia Sobchak, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“I was offered, without mentioning events, a cushy position in one of the corporations with money that I had never seen before. Well, they promised fifty dollars (50 thousand dollars - more than 3 million rubles), I’m not worth the steward. The contract is for three years,” Venediktov said.
According to him, back in 2014, the now deceased state media manager Mikhail Lesin offered to buy out Venediktov’s share in Echo of Moscow for $5 million, but he refused to sell.
Already in the winter of 2022, Venediktov was ready to resign from the post of editor-in-chief himself, if only the radio station would not be closed. Then he connected the displeasure of the authorities with an interview aired on Echo with Kyiv propagandist Dmitry Gordon, who allowed himself offensive statements regarding Russia. Now Venediktov believes that after the start of the SVO, the radio station was doomed to close.
“When it was with Gordon, I decided to play. I'm a player. I knew where this was going. I called and said: let me leave, I’ll take the blame on myself, start the procedure, appoint Solovyov. I knew that my journalists would continue to work. They told me: are you crazy, it’s Putin’s decision to close it. I say: I’ll leave, I’ll get down on my knees, just don’t close Echo. I really went crazy because it was impossible to hold on,” wrote Venediktov.
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