TBILISI (Reuters) – When tv reporters Tikhon Dzyadko and Ekaterina Kotrikadze left Russia with different colleagues in March, they left the nation with out one in all its few main non-government media shops.

The pair, main journalists at unbiased TV channel Dozhd, have been broadcasting a present affairs present on their joint YouTube channel from neighbouring Georgia since Dozhd went off air however at the moment are making ready a proper relaunch from overseas.

Their departure from Russia got here after President Vladimir Putin signed a legislation imposing a jail time period of as much as 15 years for spreading “pretend” information concerning the army, making it successfully unlawful to criticise Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Dozhd was one in all many media shops whose leaders took the choice to halt their actions.

“The web page of Russian trendy historical past referred to as unbiased journalism has been turned,” Dzyadko, Dozhd’s editor-in-chief, advised Reuters in a bare-bones tv studio in Georgia, one in all a number of nations they plan to broadcast from.

A reside stream they did final week had greater than 92,000 views, permitting them to attach with a few of their viewers on one of many few on-line platforms that has not been blocked by the authorities, who say their critics are serving a hostile West.

But after Russia despatched troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, Dozhd drew some 25 million every day views, despite the fact that the channel was designated a “overseas agent” by the authorities final yr.

The Kremlin describes its actions in Ukraine as a particular army operation and accuses media which criticise it or its actions of being out to destroy Russia.

Launched in 2010, Dozhd, often called TV Rain in English, was a well-liked supply of reports on the mass protests following the arrest of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and different occasions that obtain no protection on state tv.

It is planning to renew broadcasting from cities together with Tbilisi, Riga and Amsterdam within the subsequent few weeks.

Although many features of the relaunch stay to be decided — together with its date and exact format — Kotrikadze says Dozhd aspires to be “an actual drawback for Russian propaganda”.

“We need to be an enormous headache for them,” mentioned Kotrikadze, the channel’s information director.

‘IRON CURTAIN’

As Dozhd prepares to return on air, the channel faces two main challenges: reaching a Russian viewers that has change into more and more remoted and safely reporting from contained in the nation regardless of restrictions.

“We get numerous viewers as a result of they see hyperlinks on Facebook or Twitter,” Dzyadko mentioned. “But since Facebook and Twitter have been blocked, despite the fact that persons are utilizing VPNs (digital non-public networks), the viewers is getting smaller.”

Facebook and Twitter are formally banned on Russian territory, however are nonetheless accessible via VPNs.

Dzyadko fears that some Dozhd viewers stuffed the void left by the channel’s absence with content material from state media. For Kotrikadze, a lot of the relaunch’s success will rely upon discovering the suitable tone in reporting on Russia from outside.

“How must you discuss to those that nonetheless imagine that the so-called ‘particular army operation’ is the suitable factor to do?” she mentioned, referring to the time period utilized by Russian authorities to explain Russia’s army intervention in Ukraine.

“I need to perceive what they’re pondering. And I need to discuss to them.”

Moscow blames Western nations – which have imposed far-reaching sanctions on Russia and restricted Russian information channels because the invasion of Ukraine – for the issues confronted by unbiased media in Russia.

Dzyadko recollects his dad and mom listening to the overseas broadcasts of Radio Liberty in Moscow throughout the Soviet period, and says Dozhd viewers will quickly expertise one thing related.

“I’ve little doubt that there shall be a strategy to get via this media Iron Curtain in Russia,” he mentioned.

(Reporting by Reuters; modifying by Philippa Fletcher)