Vera Krichevskaya

TV Rain (Дождь; stylized as ДО///ДЬ) is an independent Russian television channel.

Presenters cited Viktor Astafyev and compared it with the 1812 capture of vacant Moscow.

Within 30 minutes, TV Rain removed the poll and apologized for incorrect wording.

In the following days the channel was criticized by politicians, activists, State Duma members and Valentina Matvienko for its online poll on the Leningrad siege of World War II.

Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin's press secretary, also criticized the channel and said that they violated "more than a law".

Yuri Pripachkin, President of the Cable Television Association of Russia (AKTR), said that he wanted "to take functions of censoring".

In a resolution backed by the St. Petersburg legislature's deputies, Prosecutor General Yury Chaika was requested to "conduct an investigation into provocative material posted on [Dozhd] website … and, if just cause is found, take appropriate measures, including shutting down the channel."

On 29 January, the largest Russian TV providers disconnected the channel.

Launched in 2010, it has been based in the Netherlands since 2023.

It focuses on news, discussions, culture, politics, business reports, and documentaries.

TV Rain is owned by journalist Natalya Sindeyeva.

Its slogan is "Optimistic Channel."

In March 2022, Russian authorities blocked access to TV Rain in response to its coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The channel relaunched from studios in Latvia in July, but after multiple violations had its license cancelled in December.

TV Rain continued to broadcast via YouTube and received a Dutch broadcast license in January 2023.

TV Rain was founded in 2010 by two women, Natalya Sindeyeva, media entrepreneur and owner, and Vera Krichevskaya, a TV and documentary film director.

It has focused on news, discussions, culture, politics, business reports, and documentaries.

Most TV Rain shows have been live broadcasts with a motto to "talk about important things with those who are important to us".

TV Rain was one of the first channels in Russia to cover the 2011 Russian protests against the alleged rigging of the parliamentary elections.

President Dmitry Medvedev was also noticed to have unfollowed TV Rain on Twitter.

However, the channel was the first mass media outlet that he had chosen to follow on Twitter, according to an RIA Novosti report.

On 9 December 2011, TV Rain was asked to provide copies of its coverage of the protests to check if it had abided by Russian media laws.

By 10 December, it was showing a white ribbon, a symbol of the protests, by its on-screen logo.

The station's owner, Sindeyeva, explained this as being a sign of "sincerity", rather than "propaganda", and an attempt to be "mediators" instead of simply journalists.

In November 2013, two months before the controversy, TV Rain broadcast a report by anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny investigating high-ranking officials including Vyacheslav Volodin.

The channel's owner, Natalya Sindeyeva, suggested that the program caused the campaign against the channel.

On 20 August 2021, the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation added TV Rain, along with the investigative website Important Stories (iStories), into the list of "foreign agents".

As stated by a representative of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation at the meeting with the members of Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights, the channel was designated as "foreign agent" by the request of Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media due to distribution of materials prepared by media and individuals which were declared "foreign agents" that receive donations or funding from outside Russia earlier, such as Meduza, Current Time TV, Lev Ponomaryov, Lyudmila Savitskaya.

In response, Amnesty International criticized the move, stating that the authorities were "launching a campaign against independent media aimed at eradicating unbiased journalism and investigative reporting".

The Moscow Times reported that during the year-long prelude to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian government began to act against independent and critical media.

In that period dozens of journalists and independent media agencies including TV Rain were designated as 'foreign agents' by the Russian authorities.

The term foreign agent has Soviet-era undertones.

Entities that are designated as foreign agents are obligated to disclose their sources of funding and have to label their publications including social media posts with the tag foreign agent.

Violation of the obligation attracts fines.

In 2021, a full-length documentary film titled F@ck This Job was released.

It was written and directed by Vera Krichevskaya, one of the founders of TV Rain.

The film deals with work of the channel and its CEO Natalya Sindeyeva.

The documentary was broadcast under its alternative title, Tango with Putin in the UK in March 2022 as part of the BBC documentary series, Storyville.

On 26 January 2014, TV Rain ran a poll on its website and on its live "Dilettantes" discussion program asking viewers if Leningrad should have been surrendered to the invading Nazi army in order to save hundreds of thousands of lives during the siege of Leningrad.

TV Rain was forced to move to a private apartment in October 2014.