Vladimir Gusinsky
1952 – ? Russian media oligarch
Media oligarch who built Russia's leading independent TV network and lost it under Putin.
- Religion
- Jewish
- Affiliations
- Media-Most, NTV, Russian Jewish Congress
Vladimir Gusinsky built the Media-Most group and the NTV channel, which became Russia's leading independent television network and ran critical, satirical coverage of the government and the Chechen war. A founder of the Russian Jewish Congress, he was one of the seven bankers of the Yeltsin era. Soon after Putin took power the state moved against him; he was briefly arrested and pressured to sell Media-Most, NTV was taken over by the Gazprom-Media arm, and he fled into exile. His case was an early sign that the new Kremlin would not tolerate independent national television.
Connections
- associate of Boris Berezovsky — Fellow media oligarch of the Yeltsin era.
- rival of Vladimir Putin — Drove the media owner out of NTV and into exile early in his rule.
- rival of Vladimir Putin — Lost NTV and was driven into exile early in Putin's rule.
In the timeline
- 1996 Semibankirshchina, the 'seven bankers', named in the press one of the seven bankers
- 1997 Gusinsky builds NTV into Russia's leading independent network the owner
- 2000 Gusinsky arrested and pressured to sell Media-Most the pressured owner
- 2000 Gusinsky flees Russia into exile the exiled oligarch
- 2000 Vladimir Gusinsky and the seizure of NTV central figure
- 2001 Gazprom-Media takes control of NTV the ousted owner