All Russian media now is controlled by the government—just like in Soviet times. The Kremlin runs a multi-hundred million dollar propaganda machine—can it be sanctioned? Russia Today alone is a $400 million operation. In March, the Kremlin put Chinese government-like restrictions on the Internet, and cracked down on the few remaining independent news outlets and bloggers left in Russia. The Guardian revealed that the Kremlin has a paid network of bloggers and commenters, “some are paid as much as 600,000 roubles ($16,700) for leaving hundreds of comments on negative stories about Putin.”
