Why did intelligent, well-travelled people agree to be the mouthpieces for state misinformation? Since Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000, the Russian press has been slowly, methodically strangled, which has forced existential choices on newspaper and TV journalists. Twenty-one have been killed – beaten, poisoned or gunned down. Others, such as Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, highly-regarded investigative reporters and the authors of Our Dear Friends in Moscow: The Inside Story of a Broken