Kommersant
Russian oligarch-owned, Kremlin-adjacent
Background
The original Kommersant was founded in Moscow in 1909 and shut down by the Bolsheviks after the 1917 revolution. It was revived in 1990 by entrepreneur Vladimir Yakovlev during the glasnost era, quickly establishing itself as Russia's leading business daily. Oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who had close but later adversarial ties to the Kremlin, purchased the Kommersant publishing group in 1997. In 2006, Berezovsky sold it to Alisher Usmanov, a metals and telecoms magnate with longstanding Kremlin connections, who holds it through USM Holdings. In May 2019, all of Kommersant's politics editors resigned en masse after Usmanov demanded the firing of reporters who published a story critical of Federation Council speaker Valentina Matvienko — a stark illustration of the limits of its editorial independence. Following Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. and EU sanctioned Usmanov, yet in 2023 the U.S. Treasury issued General License 64 specifically authorizing transactions with Kommersant, describing it as 'one of Russia's most independent remaining publishing companies.' The paper continues to operate inside Russia under the broad censorship framework that has eliminated or exiled most genuinely independent Russian media since 2022.
Sources
- Kommersant – Wikipedia
- Scandal at Kommersant threatens the Kremlin's light-touch censorship policy – The Bell
- Kommersant: the oddest sanctions – bne IntelliNews
- I Know What It's Like to Work for Alisher Usmanov's Media – The Moscow Times
- Kommersant – Bias and Credibility – Media Bias/Fact Check
- Kommersant – eurotopics.net
- Russia: 'Kommersant' Purchase Changes Media Landscape – RFE/RL
- Sanctioning an Oligarch Is Not So Easy – OCCRP
Profile compiled 2026-07-28; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.