Radio Liberty

Radio Liberty during the Cold War era

From the very beginning of the Cold War , the leaders of the US propaganda apparatus hatched the idea of ​​creating such organizations that could, unlike the Voice of America radio station, which began broadcasting in the languages ​​of the peoples of the USSR since 1947, broadcast radio propaganda to the countries of the Soviet bloc without formally inflicting damage to US reputation. As General Lucius Clay , who was then the commander in chief of the American occupation forces in West Germany, stated, “We need a different voice - a voice, perhaps less regulated by the status of the state itself and, if you like, cruel and smashing to death, a voice ... leading a ruthless , uncontained psychological warfare aimed at explicitly recognized by the goal - the overthrow of the communist regime "(. a quote from the book of the Russian writer, the original source is not specified) Clay supported Gen. Dwight Hey enhauer , put forward the slogan of creating "powerful radio stations abroad, which operate without government restrictions" ^[7] .

Since 1948, under the leadership of the US State Department and the CIA, many “private” organizations have been set up aimed at subversive activities against the USSR, including the “ National Committee for a Free Europe ” with its own radio station. She began broadcasting to the countries of the socialist camp in Europe from the territory of West Germany on July 4, 1950. From that day on, private non-profit international radio company Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty has its history. Initially, broadcasting was conducted to Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Romania, since 1975 - also to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia ^[8] .

The work of the RFE against the Polish People’s Republic was especially active. The Polish edition in Munich had 80 employees. Its branches operated in Bonn, New York, London, Paris, Rome, Stockholm, West Berlin, Brussels, Athens ^[7] . The political adviser to the committee, O. Jackson, speaking to employees of the Free Europe radio station in November 1951, said: “RFE is a service of psychological warfare . Our organization was established to provoke internal unrest in the countries to which we broadcast. Military intervention in general makes sense only if the peoples of the countries we are interested in are instilled with an impetus for armed action within the country ” ^[7] . (Quote from a book by a Russian author, original source not specified.)

The Russian service (edition) of the RS / RFE began its broadcasting on March 1, 1953, under the name Radio Liberation. Its first speaker was the former Leningrad actor Boris Vinogradov , who came under occupation in Pyatigorsk during the war and went to the West along with the retreating German army. In the same year, broadcasting was launched in Armenian, Azerbaijani, Adyghe, Avar, Georgian, Ingush, Ossetian, Chechen, Balkar-Karachai, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Uzbek, Turkmen, Tatar; a year later - in Belarusian and Ukrainian, in the 1960s - in Karakalpak, Uyghur and Crimean Tatar ^[9] .

Radio Liberation was created by the American Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism and was led by a public expatriate organization, the Coordination Center for Anti-Bolshevik Struggle. They tried to prevent members of the People’s Labor Union (NTS) ^{[7] [10] from} working on Radio Liberation, since the NTS aroused suspicion of the station’s leadership (both American officials and a number of politically active emigrants from other parties and movements) secret work on Soviet intelligence.

According to Soviet propaganda, “Freedom” from the very beginning functioned as a stronghold of American intelligence in Europe, the European center for coordinating the activities of anti-Soviet emigrant organizations. The radio station was always funded by the US Congress, but until the early 1970s money went through the CIA budget (it was forbidden by law to finance private organizations to Congress), later (after the communication of both radio stations with the CIA was made public) the ban was canceled and the appropriations were allocated directly by the US Congress ^{[7 ]} .

To receive information from behind the Iron Curtain, the radio station’s employees closely monitored the print media, radio and television of the USSR and other socialist states, met with citizens and defectors who went abroad, received information from people who were in opposition to the communist regimes, and maintained contact with Western journalists accredited in the states of the socialist camp. Research departments were created at the radio stations, which not only provided information support for broadcasting of the radio stations themselves, but also provided authoritative review and analytical materials to many Western political scientists. Often, the authorities of the socialist states themselves received information that could not be obtained from the media controlled by them from the RS / RFE radio interception reports circulated for limited use ^[8] .

In the 1950s, in a studio in Munich, transmissions were recorded on magnetic tape, then coils were delivered hundreds of kilometers to Lampertheim , where the American army radio transmitter was located ^[11] . The Munich building, which housed the RS, was first in the old building of the city airport in Oberwiesenfeld (1953-1966), then in Arabella Park (1967-1975), then - next to the English Garden on Ottingenstrasse 67 (1976-1995); The New York Software Center, first on 47th Street in Manhattan, then on 42nd and finally, at 1775 Broadway.

RFE from 1950 to 1995 It was located at one address - in the premises of the former American military hospital on Ottingenstrasse, 67 (where RS also moved in in 1976).

RFE conducted transmissions from Germany; at the end of 1951, short-wave transmit antennas were installed in Portugal. RS also broadcasted from Germany, since 1955 it began to use a transmitter on the island of Taiwan to cover the eastern part of the USSR, and in March 1959 began transmitting a signal from the sea coast of Spain ^[12] .

The leadership of the USSR back in 1949 decided to create a jamming network for western radio stations ^[13] .

In the fall of 1949, the country's leadership decided to build a powerful all-Union network of radio suppression ... The largest goals of radio suppression were the radio stations "Free Europe" ("Radio Free Europe" - RFE) and "Freedom" ("Radio Liberty" - RL). The Munich headquarters of the RFE began work on May 1, 1951 at 11 o’clock in the afternoon by transferring the Czechoslovak service. After 5 hours, jamming appeared, which lasted almost 40 years ^[13] .

In May 1959, the radio station changed its name to Radio Liberty.

In 1972, US Senator James Fulbright advocated the closure of Freedom. The radio station was able to defend thanks to the intervention of American senators, political scientists, journalists and public figures. An important role was also played by the fact that materials appeared in the press about the manipulation of Senator Fulbright by the Polish intelligence, and, thereby, his attacks on both radio stations were largely debunked. Unexpected was the voice in defense of the RS that came from the USSR and belonged to the Soviet human rights activist Andrei Dubrov , who sent his article (via Peter Yakir) to the Chicago Tribune under the pseudonym German Smirnovsky ^[14] . However, Congressional funding was reduced, and both stations were forced to lay off many employees.

In 1976, Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe merged ^[8] .

In the 1970s, broadcasting was stopped in a number of languages ​​of the USSR: Adyghe, Avar, Ingush, Ossetian, Uigur, Chechen, Balkar-Karachai, Karakalpak ^[9] .

For many decades, Radio Liberty has provided its multinational audience in the USSR and other countries of Eastern Europe with facts of Soviet history and modern reality, hiding from the people and not covered in the official media, as well as information on the activities of individuals and organizations opposed to communist regimes in USSR and other countries of Eastern Europe, and repressions of the authorities against them.

The radio station provided the platform with disgraced and non - conformist politicians, defectors, " refuseniks ", dissidents , famous artists of the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries. During this period, Vasily Aksyonov , Petr Vail , Vladimir Voinovich , Alexander Galich , Alexander Genis , Anatoly Gladilin , Sergey Dovlatov , Gennady Katsov , Anatoly Kuznetsov , Victor Nekrasov , Andrey Sinyavsky constantly collaborated with RS / RFE. On the waves of the radio station, they read literary works, philosophical essays, memoirs, organized round tables and disputes on cultural and political topics. Thanks to Radio Liberty, the audience in the USSR and Eastern Europe was able to familiarize themselves with many works known only in Samizdat ^[15] .

“... there was an opportunity for the dissidents themselves, the opposition, the Russian forces themselves to let their opinions sound. This opinion was practically not limited ... In principle, any person could speak without adapting, that is, not opportunistically, without adapting to American tastes, namely, saying what he wants. Maybe not always everything. And in this regard, I think that the radio station played a very big role. "

- Gleb Rar ^[16] .

Soviet historians claimed that among the RFE workers there were collaborators of World War II : in particular, the head of the Armenian editorial office of the radio station was Levon Kartashian, a former graduate of the Abwehr intelligence school (who received documents for the name Mkrtchan), one of the announcers was former collaborator Dudin (speaking to the microphone under the pseudonym Nikolai Gradoboev) ^[17] .

In the early 1980s , with the Reagan administration coming to power in the United States and the appointment of former Republican Senator James Buckley as director of RFE / RL, accusations began to be heard against the leadership of the radio station that it fell under the influence of extreme right-wing forces and the tone of the main programs spokesmen for the ideas of Russian nationalism and anti-Semitism began to ask, to which Alexander Solzhenitsyn was attributed primarily ^[18] . The Congress Commission did not find any significant violations in the work of the radio station, although it recommended tightening control over the broadcast. A little later, in 1986, the Russian service’s accusations of releasing programs “hostile to the spirit of pluralism and democracy” were again put forward in a special report on US broadcasting to the USSR, commissioned by the American Helsinki Committee ^[19], freelance correspondent of the radio station Lyudmila Alekseeva ; this report caused a wide resonance and became the basis for new claims from Congressman Lawrence Smith ^[15] .

However, there is another point of view on these accusations, there is an opinion that they constituted a “counterattack” of the westernized part of the radio station employees (from the third wave of emigration) in response to their accusations of Russophobia and the promotion of separatism in the national republics of the USSR, which contradicted the “Professional Code RS ”(such activities sharply intensified during the years of perestroika, when V. Matusevich became the chief editor of the Russian Service). Such accusations were made in the interview of Solzhenitsyn ^[20] , and in the appeals of the bishops, and even the Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad to the US leadership, and from the Orthodox-patriotic circles in the USSR ^[21] .

For their part, the Soviet leadership and the authorities of Eastern Europe considered the RFE / RL as an information weapon of the West in the Cold War , an instrument of Western propaganda aimed at inciting public discontent with the actions of the authorities, forming mass opposition to the ruling regime, inciting ethnic hatred in the USSR, encouraging ideas of national exclusivity, undermining the unity of the socialist camp. The Soviet authorities characterized the activities of the radio station as “slanderous” and as “ideological sabotage” aimed at undermining the “unity of Soviet society” and the socialist system.

As a countermeasure throughout the Soviet Union, especially in densely populated areas and around industrial centers, a radio jamming network was deployed. The RFE / RS jamming continued for a long time after it had already been stopped for most foreign radio stations broadcasting in the USSR (this was due to the fact that the rest of the radio stations: Voice of America , Deutsche Welle , BBC had, unlike RFE / RL, state status). It was finally discontinued only on November 29, 1988. According to archival records published in Ukraine in 2018 (47 documents from 1965 to 1991), the KGB actively monitored the broadcast and the activities of the radio station, as well as compiled analytical and reporting materials on this topic for the party leadership of the Ukrainian SSR ^{[22] [23]} >.

Due to the collapse of the socialist system and the collapse of the USSR, as well as the proclamation of freedom of speech in the USSR and Eastern Europe, the need for large-scale propaganda activities came to naught and funding for the radio station was reduced. The national editorial offices working for the countries of Eastern Europe were mostly closed. The Hungarian edition stopped working in 1993, the Polish in 1997, the Czech in 2002, the Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Slovak, Croatian and Bulgarian in 2004, and the Romanian in 2008 ^{[9] [24]} .

Such prominent anti-communists as Vaclav Havel , Lech Walesa , Adam Michnik spoke highly of RS / RFE during the Cold War. По их мнению, значение радиостанции, прежде всего как надёжного источника новостей, было трудно переоценить ^[15] .

В середине 1990-х годов, в период распада Югославии, была создана балканская редакция РСЕ, вещающая на боснийском, хорватском, сербском (с 1994 года), косовском албанском (с 1999 года), черногорском (с 2000 года), македонском (с 2001 года) ^[25] .

По мере того, как фокус американской внешней политики смещался в сторону Большого Ближнего Востока , РС/РСЕ в 1998 году начала вещание на Ирак на арабском языке и Иран на фарси. В 2002 году РС/РСЕ возобновила вещание на Афганистан на дари и пушту, которое велось в 1980-е годы, во время афганской войны. 15 января 2010 года было начато вещание на местных пуштунских диалектах для населения приграничных племенных территорий Пакистана и Афганистана ^[8] .

Разведывательные операции против РС/РСЕ

В 1960-е — 1970-е гг. спецслужбы СССР и социалистических стран внедрили на Радио Свобода нескольких агентов. Впоследствии материалы об их работе на РС/РСЕ были широко опубликованы. Среди известных разведчиков: Олег Туманов (СССР), Анджей Чехович ( ПНР ), Павел Минаржик ( ЧССР ), Хрисан Христов ( НРБ ), Юрий Марин (СССР).

В 1978 году в Лондоне был убит, предположительно, агентами болгарских спецслужб корреспондент болгарской редакции РСЕ Георгий Марков ^{[26] [27]} . В 1981 году по заданию румынских органов госбезопасности в мюнхенской штаб-квартире РС/РСЕ была заложена бомба. В результате взрыва пострадало шесть человек, а зданию был нанесён огромный ущерб ^[8] .

«Радио Свобода» в постсоветскую эпоху

После провала попытки путча ГКЧП указом российского президента Бориса Ельцина от 27 августа 1991 года была разрешена деятельность радиостанции непосредственно в России (был отменён в октябре 2002 году президентом Владимиром Путиным ^[28] ).

Трудно переоценить значение вашего вклада в уничтожение тоталитарного режима в бывшем СССР. Но не менее важны ваши усилия сейчас в деле информирования русских слушателей о событиях в нашей стране и во всем мире.

Послание Президента России Б. Н. Ельцина «Радио Свобода» в связи с сорокалетним юбилеем станции. Март 1993 ^[29]

Ныне РС действует в рамках общего российского закона о СМИ.

В 1995 году радиостанция перебазировалась из ФРГ в Прагу ( Чехия ). После распада СССР в Конгрессе США неоднократно поднимался вопрос о сокращении расходов на финансирование РСЕ/РС, поэтому предложение президента Чехии Вацлава Гавела о переводе штаб-квартиры радиостанции в Прагу, поступившее в октябре 1993 года , было одобрено уже в конце августа 1994 года. Новой штаб-квартирой стало здание бывшего Федерального собрания Чехословакии , сданное радиостанции в аренду за 1 крону в год. Вещание с территории Чехии началось с апреля 1995 года, а полностью переезд был закончен в сентябре 1995 года ^[30] . В 2009 году радиостанция переехала в специально построенное современное здание недалеко от центра Праги ^[31] .

В 1995 году «Радио Свобода» было зарегистрировано в Госкомпечати РФ как средство массовой информации.

В 1997 году был создан сайт русскоязычной службы «Радио Свобода». Первоначально его основу составляли новости и архивы радиопрограмм ^[32] , позже добавились архивные записи, аудио- и видеоматериалы. В разное время сайтом руководили Екатерина Пархоменко, Людмила Телень , по состоянию на октябрь 2018 года, этим занимается Дмитрий Волчек .

Since 1998, Radio Liberty began broadcasting in Moscow on medium waves (1044 kHz). In addition, in more than 30 Russian regions, its programs were relayed by local radio stations in various bands. In most cases, the RFE / RL bought the airtime from local radio stations and sent them a signal via satellite, while the radio stations had to be licensed to relay programs from abroad.

The radio station pays much attention to human rights issues in Russia. In the 2000s, special attention was paid to coverage of the Chechen conflict and the situation in the North Caucasus as a whole. The radio station, as a rule, provided a microphone to both sides of the conflict. This gave rise to representatives of the authorities to talk about "information aiding terrorists" and believe that it thereby violates the current legislation of the Russian Federation. The activities of the correspondent of the radio station Andrei Babitsky were particularly sharply criticized. According to some liberal media, his reports from the besieged federal troops of Grozny provoked indignation in the security forces and became a direct reason for his detention and abduction ^{[33] [34] [35] [36]}

On July 7, 2006, the Washington Post reported that Russian radio stations, under pressure from the authorities, had stopped broadcasting RFE / RL programs and Voice of America radio stations. Out of 30 RFE / RL partners, only 4 radio stations continued relaying ^[37] . As the reason, Russian officials called “violations of the license terms and unauthorized changes in the programs of programs,” however, the RFE / RL leadership considered this only a pretext. According to one of the leaders of the radio station Geoffrey Trimble, the ban was caused by the fact that “we focus primarily on internal events - precisely on those things that the Kremlin has problems with” ^[38] .

In 1995-2012, the directors of the Russian Service of the RS were Yuri Gendler, Mario Corti, Maria Klein, Rinat Valiullin, Efim Fishtein.

On September 14, 2012, M. A. Hessen was appointed the new director of the Russian Service. On September 20, the Internet edition of the Russian Service of Radio Liberty was dismissed in its entirety. The next day, other employees of the Moscow Bureau were fired, including technical personnel. Then it was announced the upcoming cessation of broadcasting in Russia on medium waves ^[39] .

Since November 10, 2012, Radio Liberty, having stopped broadcasting in Russia on short, continued broadcasting on medium waves and on the Internet . The decision was connected with a new law on mass media issued in Russia, according to which a company broadcasting on the Russian radio air is required to have no more than 48% of foreign registered capital , while the founders of Radio Liberty exceed this limit ^[40] .

Within a few months of the work of the new director of the Moscow service, Masha Gessen, site traffic was approximately halved. In December, the president of Radio Liberty and Free Europe, Stephen Korn, was fired, who was charged with the collapse of the Moscow bureau ^[41] .

Former Radio Liberty employees continued to work on the New Liberty website they created. The departed journalists were supported by Mikhail Gorbachev and human rights activists led by Lyudmila Alekseeva ^[42] .

On April 30, 2013, Masha Gessen left the post of director of the Russian Service of Radio Liberty ^[43] .

The director of the service was appointed Irina Lagunina.

As of 2018, the retransmission of PC / RFE programs by Russian radio stations is not carried out. Broadcasting in Russian is conducted from abroad in the medium wave range (8.5 hours per day) and via satellite. Footage is distributed via satellite and YouTube. Access to textual information, videos and online broadcasting is also provided through the website and social networks ^[44] , in particular Facebook .

Since January 2016, the director of the Russian Service of Radio Liberty is Andrei Shary ^[45] . Initially, he served as acting director.

In June 2016, access was made to the archives of Radio Liberty containing records from 1953-1995 ^[46] .

The Russian Service of RFE / RL is one of the editions of Radio Liberty. The correspondent network of the Russian service includes several dozen freelance correspondents in all regions of Russia and many countries of the world.

In the Soviet years, along with other so-called “enemy voices” ( Voice of America , BBC , Deutsche Welle, etc.), it was one of the main sources of information independent of the Soviet leadership on events in the USSR and the world.

For many years, the melody of the Anthem of Free Russia , the music of which was written by composer Alexander Grechaninov during the February Revolution of 1917, served as the call sign of the Russian service of the radio station.

Radio Liberty's website (www.svoboda.org) is a multimedia portal with over 7 million monthly visits. The site publishes original materials: texts, photos, video reports, as well as transcripts of radio programs, it is possible to listen to the broadcast online and through podcasts. The site specializes in live video broadcasts from the scene and the production of video talk shows (15 hours a week). Radio Liberty has accounts on the social networks Facebook , Twitter , VKontakte , Odnoklassniki , Youtube , LiveJournal , Telegram , Instagram , SoundCloud . For smartphones developed applications available on the AppStore and Google Play .

Socio-Political Programs

Social and political broadcasting of the Russian service consists of news releases, the program “ Freedom Time ” and the talk show “Facing the Event”.

• News releases.
• “Facing the event” - host Mikhail Sokolov or Elena Rykovtseva.
• “Freedom Time” - host Andrey Sharogradsky.

Culture Programs

The cultural program includes the following programs:

• “Genis. View from New York ”- presenter Alexander Genis .
• “Cultural Diary” - hosted by Dmitry Volchek.
• “Over the Barriers with Igor Pomerantsev” - presenter Igor Pomerantsev .
• “Over the Barriers with Ivan Tolstoy” - host Ivan Tolstoy .

Other programs

• “Money in Freedom” (Maxim Blunt).
• “Quotes of Freedom” (Ala Ponomareva).
• “A man has a right” (Mariana Torocheshnikova).
• “Roads to freedom” ( Vitaly Portnikov ).
• "Archeology" ( Sergey Medvedev ).
• Atlas of the World (Alexander Gostev and Yaroslav Shimov).
• "American Issues" (Yuri Zhigalkin).
• "Archeology. The future ”( Sergey Medvedev ).
• “Born after the USSR” (Tamara Lyalenkova).
• “From a Christian point of view” ( Yakov Krotov ).
• “Cult of personality” (Leonid Velekhov).
• “Freedom in the clubs” ( Elena Fanailova ).
• “Music on Freedom” ( Artemy Troitsky ).

Channel "Present"

Present time - Radio Liberty / Free Europe media project in partnership with Voice of America. The media project began its work in October 2014 with the evening broadcast of the same name and the launch of the site http://www.currenttime.tv/ . In March 2016, “Present” began a test broadcast of the eponymous channel on the Eutelsat Hot Bird 13B satellite, a little later on the “Present” website. On October 3, 2016, the channel began full broadcasting with the launch of the evening block of programs on weekdays. Live broadcast of the channel: http://www.currenttime.tv/p/5261.html

Guide

• Andrey Shary - Director of the Russian Service of Radio Liberty since January 2016.
• Yaroslav Shimov - Deputy Director of the Russian Service of Radio Liberty since July 2017.
• Dmitry Volchek is the editor-in-chief of the Radio Liberty website.
• Evgenia Nazarets has been the chief editor of the Moscow Bureau of Radio Liberty since April 2016.

• The whole world :
  • English language
• Eastern Europe :
  • Belarusian language ;
  • Ukrainian language ;
  • Russian language ;
  • Romanian language
  • Crimean Tatar language ;
  • Tatar and Bashkir languages ;
• Balkans :
  • Serbo-Croatian language ;
  • Macedonian
  • Albanian
  • Romanian language
  • Bulgarian language
• Caucasus and Transcaucasia :
  • Russian language ;
  • Armenian language
  • Azerbaijani language
  • Georgian language
  • Chechen language ^[47] ;
• Central and Front Asia :
  • English language
  • Russian language ;
  • Kazakh language
  • Kyrgyz language
  • Persian , Dari , Tajik;
  • Turkmen language
  • Uzbek language
  • Pashto ;

In 2002, Radio Liberty began daily hourly broadcasting in the regions of the North Caucasus ^[47] . Broadcasting included three 20-minute programs in Chechen , Avar and Circassian languages ​​(initially only 15 minutes were allocated for programs in each language, and the remaining 15 minutes were occupied by Russian-language programs for residents of the North Caucasus).

On May 31, 2016, the North Caucasus Radio Liberty service was reduced. Circassian and Avar editions were dissolved. The Chechen edition will continue to work in an expanded format. Accordingly, the broadcasting of the North Caucasus Service was reduced to a daily 20-minute program in the Chechen language in the morning and evening ^[48] .

On October 1, 2016, the Tatar and North Caucasus Radio Liberty services stopped broadcasting in the Tatar and Chechen languages. The Chechen-language radio program has been reduced to an evening 20-minute release as a daily podcast on the site, now separate audio reports are being recorded instead of podcasts. While the Tatar service of Radio Liberty stopped releasing radio programs and podcasts in the Tatar language, continuing its work on the Internet.

In the second half of 2016, the websites “Idel.Realities” (website: http://www.idelreal.org/ ) and “Caucasus. Realities ”(website: http://www.kavkazr.com/ ), in October 2017 the fact-check project“ Factograph ”began to work (website: https://www.factograph.info/ ), in November 2017 its activities started the site “Siberia. Realities ”(website: https://www.sibreal.org/ ).

In October 2009, broadcasting in Russian to Abkhazia and South Ossetia was launched. (program "Echo of the Caucasus").

• Abkhazia
• Azerbaijan
• Armenia
• Afghanistan
• Belarus
• Bulgaria
• Bosnia and Herzegovina .
• Georgia
• Iran
• Kazakhstan
• Kyrgyzstan
• Kosovo
• Moldova
• Pakistan
• Russia
• Romania
• North Macedonia .
• Serbia
• Tajikistan
• Turkmenistan
• Uzbekistan
• Ukraine
• Montenegro
• South Ossetia .

Broadcasting stopped

(according to information on the years of termination of broadcasting in some countries on the official website )

• Hungary (1993).
• Poland (1997).
• Czech Republic (2002).
• Slovenia (2003).
• Croatia (2003).
• Slovakia (2004).
• Estonia (2004).
• Latvia (2004).
• Lithuania (2004) ^[49] .
• Iraq (2015).

Broadcast forbidden

Broadcasting is prohibited for political reasons in Belarus , Azerbaijan , Russia , Iran , Tajikistan , Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan .

According to some reports, according to the Smith-Mundt Act , radio stations, partially funded by US government agencies, including the non-profit international radio corporation Radio Liberty, are prohibited from broadcasting directly to American citizens ^[50] . Opponents of RS / RFE consider the goal of this desire to protect US citizens from propaganda statements of their own government, while supporters of RS / RFE consider that broadcasting a radio station in the USA is impractical, since the radio station was originally conceived as a mouthpiece of ideas of democracy, freedom and human rights in non-free countries.

Broadcast in Russian

Transmissions are conducted on medium waves ^[51] , on the air of partner radio stations, as well as via satellite and the Internet . June 26, 2016 short-wave broadcasting ceased.

Radio Liberty in Russian broadcasts in Russia, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova and Georgia. In October 2009, Russian-language broadcasting was opened for Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Broadcasting in Russia

Since 1998, Radio Liberty Bureau was located in Moscow at 18 Staropimenovsky Lane (now: 20 Malaya Dmitrovka St.).

The programs of the Russian Radio Liberty Service can be heard on medium waves ^[51] , via the Hot Bird and AsiaSat satellites, and on the Internet at svoboda.org. Until June 26, 2016, the station also broadcast in the shortwave band ^[52] .

Broadcasting in Poland

The programs of the Russian Service of Radio Liberty can be heard on the air of the digital radio station Radio Poland DAB + ^{[53] [54]} . Radio Poland DAB + broadcasts in the Polskie radio digital multiplex in the DAB + standard ^[55] .

Broadcasting in Moldova

! Town || Frequency | - | Disinterest || 105.0 MHz | - | Disinterest || 105.0 MHz |}

Broadcasting in Georgia

The programs of the Russian service of Radio Liberty can be heard on the radio station Radio Green Wave ^{[56] [57]} .

Broadcasting in Latvia

The programs of the Russian service of Radio Liberty can be heard on the air of the radio station Latvijas radio 4 (LR4) ^{[58] [59]} .

Broadcasting in Lithuania

The programs of the Russian service of Radio Liberty can be heard on the air of the radio station Žinių radijas ^{[60] [61]} . Also, the programs of the Russian Service of Radio Liberty can be heard on the air of Radio Baltic Waves. The radio station can be heard in the European part of Russia.

Russian service

In the monograph “New Technologies for the Fight against Russian Statehood” V. I. Yakunin , V. E. Bagdasaryan , S. S. Sulakshin state that the “Liberty” radio station is engaged in “regular anti-Russian propaganda”. According to these authors, despite the fact that the radio station was created for the ideological struggle of NATO with the socialist alliance and the Soviet Union , the nature of its activities after the collapse of the USSR essentially did not change ^[62] .

The main activities of [Radio Liberty] are to discredit the Russian authorities, and often Russian culture, to provide information support to pro-American opponents of the current regime and to promote Americanism. In addition, a significant form is the promotion of the separatist sentiments of non-Russian peoples. This fact, in particular, is confirmed by former employees of the national editorial offices of the corporation, who openly declare the enormous role of RFE-RL in awakening “national consciousness” ^[63] .

- A.A. Mukhin . Media Empires of Russia

In April 2014, the long-standing correspondent of RS Andrei Babitsky was first suspended from work at a radio station - for approving Russia's actions to annex Crimea ^[64] , and was completely dismissed in March 2015. Babitsky himself called the reason for dismissal a conflict with the Ukrainian edition of the RS because of the video he sent, on which the exhumation of the bodies of the residents of Novosvetlovka killed by the Aidar battalion was shot ^[65] .

In February 2019, the article “They acted as blackmail” was published on the site of Radio Liberty, which was dedicated to the activities of Concord LLC in the school and preschool nutrition market in Moscow. The site’s editorial office received a pre-trial claim from Concord Food Plant for protecting business reputation. At the end of March, it became known that the editors of the site decided to remove the publication due to the fact that the information contained in it cannot be publicly confirmed. “We do not have reliable information that KP Concord LLC is a monopolist in the school and preschool food market in Moscow,” the statement says. - We also cannot provide sufficient direct evidence of the performance by representatives of KP Concord LLC of any illegal, dishonest or fraudulent actions, including against counterparties and partners of KP Concord LLC ^[66] .

A few hours after the FSB operatives detained 20 members of Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami in Crimea on March 27, 2019, two Radio Liberty projects, Idel.Realities and the Caucasus, were simultaneously detained. Реалии» выступили в поддержку арестованных террористов (в первом материале речь шла об обращении организации «Свободный Идель-Урал» к муфтию Республики Татарстан Камилю Самигуллину, во втором — об осуждении операции со стороны дипломатической службы Евросоюза) ^{[67] [68] [69]} .

В апреле 2019 года, в Twitter-анонсе опубликованного на сайте «Кавказ.Реалии» материала о вступлении в силу российского закона, вводящего ответственность за занятие высшего положения в иерархии преступной группировки, делается предположение о «дискриминации воров по нац. признаку». Из фактуры в статье сообщается лишь о том, что большинство лидеров славянских ОПГ предпочли остаться в Москве, а неславянских — покинуть Россию ^{[70] [71]} .

Украинская служба

Обозреватель украинской службы «Радио Свобода» В. Э. Портников и вся украинская служба были обвинены другим украинским журналистом, А. А. Шарием во многочисленных случаях предоставления недостоверной информации, нарушениях принципов объективности и нейтральности в освещении событий, а также манипулировании мнением читателей ^{[72] [73] [74] [75]} . Шарий называл сайт, принадлежащий радио «Свобода», «пропагандистским сайтом» и «сайтом-вонючкой», указывая на фальсификации и не состыковки в своих видео на канале Youtube , а в какой-то момент даже подал в суд на Портникова ^[76] .

Таджикская служба

В апреле 2019 «Радио Свобода» выступило с заявлением о начале собственного расследования против своей таджикской службы — «Радио Озоди». Согласно опубликованному тексту, данное местное отделение систематически сотрудничает с «репрессивным режимом Эмомали Рахмона», стала зависима от правительства этого государства и такая ситуация «больше не соответствует нашим ценностям». Кроме того, в ней утверждается, что структура «портит репутацию Соединённых Штатов своим провластным освещением. Напомним, что эфирное вещание названной «провластной» службы на территории Таджикистана запрещено » ^[77] .

• Вражеские голоса
• « Голос Америки »
• Anti-Sovietism
• Цензура в СССР
• Операция «Пересмешник»
• Белорусская служба Радио «Свобода»
• Татаро-башкирская служба «Радио „Свобода“»
• Forbes Russia

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• Вачнадзе Г. Н. Антенны направлены на Восток. Формы и методы империалистической радиопропаганды на страны социализма . — 2-е изд., переработ. and add. — М. : Политиздат , 1977. — 239 с. - 100,000 copies.
• Колчина А. С. Радио Свобода как литературный проект. Социокультурный феномен зарубежного радиовещания. — М. : Издательский дом Высшей школы экономики , 2014. — 295 с. — ISBN 978-5-7598-1178-7 .
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• Официальный сайт «Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty»
• Официальный сайт Русской службы
•   Видеоканал «Радио Свобода» на русском языке на YouTube
• Новая «Свобода» Сайт созданный уволенными с радио «Свобода» журналистами.
• Архив программ Русской службы до 16 января 2006 года
• Передачи Русской службы «Радио Свобода»
• Прямой эфир Русской службы «Радио Свобода» в формате Windows Media
• Статья о Татаро-башкирской службе «Радио Свобода»
• Радио Прага. Дело о подготовке взрыва на Радио Свободная Европа в Мюнхене вновь передано в суд
• Видеозапись встречи американского руководства РС и М. А. Гессен с правозащитниками, недовольными увольнениями в Московского бюро, и представителями уволенных журналистов
• В Москве отметили 60-летний юбилей Радио Свобода — полный видеоотчет — «Новая Свобода», 03.03.2013
• От Радио Свобода — к Радио Гессен: все ниже и ниже…
• Как «Радио Свобода» сохранило запрещенную литературу // « Colta.ru », 04.06.2015