[Sixstrings]

Russia expels US journalist David Satter without explanation

Russia has expelled a US journalist living in Moscow for the first time since the cold war, in a move that is likely to strain relations with Washington on the eve of the Sochi Winter Olympics.

David Satter – a distinguished former correspondent with the Financial Times and the author of three well-received books on Russia and the Soviet Union – was told on Christmas Day that he had been banned from the country.

Satter had been based in the Russian capital since September. Last month, he travelled to the Ukrainian capital Kiev to renew his visa where Alexy Gruby, a diplomat at the Russian embassy, read him a prepared statement that said: "The competent organs have decided that your presence on the territory of the Russian Federation is not desirable. You are banned from entering Russia."

The "competent organs" are the Federal Security Service (FSB), President Vladimir Putin's powerful domestic spy and counter-intelligence agency. Such language is usually used in spy cases.

The US ambassador in Moscow, Michael McFaul, raised Satter's case with Russia's deputy foreign minister, Sergei Rybakov, on the eve of the refusal. Following Satter's expulsion, the embassy issued a diplomatic protest and asked for an explanation. The Russian authorities declined to give one.

On Tuesday Russia's foreign ministry accused Satter of infringing migration rules. In a statement, the ministry said the journalist had waited five days before converting his initial entry visa into a multi-entry visa – "a flagrant violation". He was now barred from the country for five years, it said.

...

Under Putin, the FSB has brought back KGB-style methods of harassment against foreign journalists. These include demonstrative apartment break-ins, surveillance and interrogations. Largely unreported, the FSB is increasingly rejecting visa applications from western academics seeking to visit Russia if their publications are deemed hostile.

...

Asked why Russia had kicked him out, Satter said he did not know the answer. But he speculated that the FSB's decision may be linked to his writings on Russia's 1999 apartment bombings – one of the murkiest episodes in the country's post-Soviet history.

More than 300 people were killed in a series of unprovoked explosions in Moscow and two other cities. Putin blamed the bombings on Chechen terrorists. He immediately seized on the blasts to justify a second, punitive and devastating war in Chechnya.

Satter, and others, believe the bombings may have been an undercover FSB operation, designed to boost Putin's popularity and to secure his election as president. In his 2003 book, Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State, Satter concluded that the evidence of the FSB being behind the blasts was "overwhelming".
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/13/russia-expels-american-journalist-david-satter

The first expulsion since the end of the cold war. Doesn't sound like he's a spy, he's just a Financial Times reporter who writes things that Putin doesn't like.

[dissident]

The moron didn't follow the proper visa procedure (even got a $180 fine assessed against him) and this is called "expulsion".
The US routinely rejects visas for people without explanation (e.g. Cat Stevens).

There is a Cold War alright, it is being fought by the west as if 1991 and the death of communism didn't happen.

[Sixstrings]

The moron didn't follow the proper visa procedure (even got a $180 fine assessed against him) and this is called "expulsion".

He says that's not true:

Asked about the statement, Satter told CNN: "That's just an attempt to confuse world opinion."

"I at no time violated any regulations. I operated strictly in conformity with what I was told to do by the Foreign Ministry," he said. "I followed all bureaucratic procedures."
http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/13/world/europe/russia-journalist-expelled/

Let's drop the song and dance, clearly the Russian government didn't like what he writes.

What do you think about the book he wrote, and claims that Putin's FSB false flagged those apartment bombings?

To me it sounds like our 9/11 truthers, which no serious journalist or writer has ever backed up. This Satter is a serious journalist though, so that gives me pause. Could Putin have done that?

I'm no expert on Russia nor want to be, I just read news. I see all these things Putin has supposedly been linked to -- all those Russian journalists murdered years ago. I read about crackdowns, FSB intelligence busting into journalists' homes. Then there are such crazy things like that Dutch diplomat, his apartment invaded by "electricians" who hogtied him and wrote a warning on the mirror. I guess that really was Russian FSB intel, if they're doing breakins with journalists then what are the odds on that diplomat, it must have been the government.

I'll admit everything I read are western sources. They all say the Russian government is like a thug criminal operation. This kind of thing is really bad, doesn't matter what country you're from whether it's the US or Russia or some Latin American regime or the state of New Jersey and the thin between politics and criminality that Chris Christie has been playing.

Totalitarianism is concerning in general, wherever it is.

If Russian intel did those bombings, on their own people, then that's some really cold blooded stuff right there -- even for Putin.

[SeaGypsy]

Just struck me how paradoxical your view is 6 (in common with CNN- your key info source right?)- Someone who believes the unbelievable official story on 9/11 but is worried about re-emergence of Russian totalitarianism. You are clueless. Being led like a sheep. When are you going to work out how to think for yourself?

[Keith_McClary]

Just struck me how paradoxical your view is 6 (in common with CNN- your key info source right?)- Someone who believes the unbelievable official story on 9/11 but is worried about re-emergence of Russian totalitarianism. You are clueless. Being led like a sheep. When are you going to work out how to think for yourself?

And, ironically:

In one of his books, "Darkness at Dawn", Satter accused the Federal Security Service (FSB), a successor of the Soviet-era KGB, of being responsible for bombings of Russian apartment buildings in 1999 which killed more than 300 people.

The FSB, which was headed by Putin before he became prime minister and then president, has denied the charge. Russian authorities blamed the attacks on separatists from Chechnya in the volatile North Caucasus. The crimes were never solved.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns- ... 2756.story

[Sixstrings]

Just struck me how paradoxical your view is 6[/b] (in common with CNN- your key info source right?)- Someone who believes the unbelievable official story on 9/11 but is worried about re-emergence of Russian totalitarianism. You are clueless. Being led like a sheep. When are you going to work out how to think for yourself?

You don't have to insult me, I assume we are on the same side -- I assume you and me both share western values, I assume we both care about civil liberties, I assume we both agree that corruption and totalitarianism is bad.

I don't really know where you're coming from SG, I think as an Australian you just think these rights you have were always there and just always will be and you don't have to be concerned about them.

But that's not how it is.

Things can change. They changed in Russia. They are changing in the US. They may change in Australia one day too.

If you guys want to have a larger debate and expand this beyond US vs. Russia cold war stuff, then we can talk about totalitarianism in general.

I.E. -- does anyone really care? Is it really so bad? The Russians on this forum seem okay with it. Most Americans seem okay with the direction we've gone. Does anyone really give a sh*t anymore?

After all, Mussolini made the trains run on time and Germans weren't out protesting the Nazis when things were good. So that's a larger debate we can have, does real democracy matter, do we even care about civil rights and a limited government strictly reigned in by rule of law?

That's a fair question to debate, without it being a "bash on Russia" / China thing.

As for false flags.. I don't have all day to obsess on things to no end, I make up my mind and move on. I think what you and others do a lot is you are relativistic, and you equivocate. Use logic instead. A premise that Putin's intel services did those bombings doesn't make "9/11 was an inside job" true.

Apples and oranges. There may be more solid proof for one but not the other. The Putin regime has a long history of doing some really hard core KGB stuff, and honestly you CAN'T say "well there's no difference with the US" because there IS a difference SG and that difference MATTERS. America in the '40s wasn't perfect either, but there sure was a big difference from the Nazis you know.

Totalitarianism is a sliding scale. It's more bad news the worse it gets, I don't care if we're talking about Australia or the US or Russia.

[Sixstrings]

There is a Cold War alright, it is being fought by the west as if 1991 and the death of communism didn't happen.

And another thing..

Here's what happened with Russia:

Communism did end, Russians embraced the West, and it was a rough transition to capitalism and you wound up with a bunch of oligarchs and something like a 19th century America. A *developing*, rough and tumble democracy.

People didn't like it. The "reforms" weren't working. So then you guys went hard right, and the rise of Putin and return to strong man leadership.

Orthodox religion, previously banned by communists, has now risen to be a new tool of state and a new oppression (don't mean to offend you if you are religious, it's just how it is, any religion gets oppressive if given the power of the state. The American Way is the best way, freedom of religion but you also have an inviolate fire wall separating church and state. Religion should be a free choice and not pushed and used by the state.).

Also, since the '90s, America itself went backwards in time. We now have poverty and wealth distribution levels more akin to 19th century America.

The world in general is devolving, and it's unfortunate. I don't know if the Russians and Chinese are to blame or what -- is this the "Russian" / "Chinese" model we're all taking on? Look at the NSA stuff in the US, Putin actually bragged that he wished he could get away with that. It's like gangster talk, what a hoot.

[SeaGypsy]

To summarize my position on Russia- my view is that Russia is a better friend than any of the Sharia leeches Obama chooses to fraternize. I'm disgusted with those feeding re-emergence of, not totalitarianism, but of the cold war. When Putin invited the US to join Russia in spearheading an anti Jihad, anti terrorist global alliance- I don't think his tongue was in his cheek. The automatic snub by the US Government relied on out of date rhetoric and ignored the entire issue at it's core- that the civilized west should rightly be aligned against those who are against them- the global Jihadists. Of course anyone with a grasp of geopolitics and resource economics knows why the US plays this game. Despite being the second biggest oil producer, the US is still number 1 importer and will remain so for the foreseeable future- reliant on Arabic Nations heavily invested in sectarian Islamism.

I'm no great fan of despots. I am a dual citizen of the US and Australia and I would fight on home soil for either country- despite my views as to the questionability of their governance. If I had any connection to Russia, I would make the same pledge. Even the corrupt hole of the Philippines, I would fight to defend. These are progressive western systems based on tolerance and rule of law- with varying and never complete success, without getting into nit picking, we are all natural allies. Getting called in to fighting each other whilst appeasing our natural born enemy inevitably becomes a case proof in point of the strategy to divide and conquer.

In this century, oil will all but run out. One of the key affects will be the retrovision of how military and police powers are applied. A new era of fragility will come upon us as a thief in the night. Much is at stake, including the very existence of progressive nation states. There is a very real possibility that the kind of hideous and subhuman activity going on and spreading daily across the ME/NA (now it seems Central Africa also) is a taste of things to come for all of us. I for one, don't want that shit going on around me, or to be involved in sponsoring it elsewhere- especially for what amounts to a short term economic gain- in no way at all about to provide any solutions worth considering to any of the real problems we are facing already and are about to face.

If it were up to me we would get on board with Putin's idea, cut off all sponsors of Jihadi activity and groups around the world- including the Saudis. Bankrupt the bastards. The process would make a big mess of our domestic economies for a period of time- but nip what is becoming an inevitable lose lose situation in the bud. Continuance with the current trajectory has us all eventually captive dependents to our mortal enemy.

[Sixstrings]

To summarize my position on Russia- my view is that Russia is a better friend than any of the Sharia leeches Obama chooses to fraternize. I'm disgusted with those feeding re-emergence of, not totalitarianism, but of the cold war.

Putin has done that, not the West. It's the age-old game of the old Soviet Russia, blame the Americans for everything, blame the West for every problem at home and then nobody blames the regime instead.

Same thing goes on in Cuba, everything is America's fault, their government blames us for everything. Same with North Korea.

Putin is anti-American, for domestic consumption, to get votes. Everyone over here had forgotten all about the cold war, when Mitt Romney called Russia our #1 geopolitical threat in the world everyone laughed at him. Especially the Left. It sounded ludicrous, what, scared of Russia?

Then the Putin government started up all this stuff against gay people, Pussyriot, Greenpeace, so now the American left got all worked up and now they know where Russia is on a map. You have the ideological Right and now the Left too with a whole bunch of gripes about Russia. Before it was just the old cold warrior right.

When Putin invited the US to join Russia in spearheading an anti Jihad, anti terrorist global alliance- I don't think his tongue was in his cheek.

Well sweet baby Jesus, we already fought a war on terror and invaded two countries over it and the world hated us for that, so now you say we're not doing enough and we should have joined Russia in this crusade thing, whatever that is.

Far as I know the US has cooperated with Russia on anti-terror. We have had two wars and a drone war. Maybe that's enough for a while. Maybe we can chill out and be a Canada for a while.

Fact is, domestically, other than random crackpots *we do not have the muslim problem* that Russia and Europe have got. Muslims in the US are pretty happy -- they have religious freedom, same as every other religion, and they are not discriminated against.

If it were up to me we would get on board with Putin's idea, cut off all sponsors of Jihadi activity and groups around the world- including the Saudis. Bankrupt the bastards.

It's all geopolitics. Russia has no crusade against the Saudis -- I've read articles that Russia may move in with Saudi Arabia, in our absence. The Chinese will too.

You seem to be insinuating the US isn't doing enough to help Russia, I guess with Chechens? Chechnya is an internal matter for them. Far as I know, US and Russia does cooperate -- certainly Russia doesn't want American troops or drones in Russia, so what are you saying SG that USA should be doing?

How can anyone say the US hasn't done enough, goodness sakes we've gotten nothing but crap from the world over these wars, and the drone war, as it is. Now you want a crusade. ??? Who are we supposed to invade, Russian Chechnya?

Can you be specific, what one thing did Putin want the USA to do regarding terror that the US refused to do???

Personally, I certainly agree with you about the jihadi stuff and how barbaric and dark age they get -- I really wish that region would hurry the hell up and westernize faster. Until that happens, all you can do is be sensitive to some extent and do what you can to avoid stoking and fueling never-ending generational holy wars.

I think Europe, and Russia, both do some things regarding their muslim populations that aren't helpful. Silly things like in France, where students can't wear a head covering to school. That's just nonsense and pisses people off for no good reason and creates enemies for yourself.

Domestically we just don't have that problem with our muslims. They have all the same freedoms as Jews and Catholics and Baptists. So there's nothing for them to get pissed off about.

I know I'm hard on Russia, but you see SG I don't expect better from the middle east, and I don't expect better from China, but Russians are Europeans. Russia WAS on the right track and they veered off. Unlike any other nation in the world, Russia still has the only nuclear arsenal that can obliterate us. The middle east can go batsh*t crazy if they want, but if Russia ever does then THAT is a big problem. Along with China, Russia is our only potential *serious* threat.

By the way, in doing some reading I've been reminded of an interesting fact -- Russia's GDP is almost the exact same as BRAZIL. So, other than the nuke arsenal, Russia is no threat. They can never afford to be a threat any more than Brazil can.

If their government continues its hard right direction, if they continue all these things that smell like a Nazi Germany and if that gets worse and worse, and if they then start to reconstitute the old USSR territory -- then the West has to take that as a threat.

If Russia ran itself like a Poland or Czech Republic and there weren't all this gaybashing and showtrials and Pussy Riot thrown in prison and hogtied Dutch diplomats and war games scaring Poland and on and on -- then nobody would care SG, if they were a big peaceful non-scary Euro nation then nobody would mind if they expand.

[SeaGypsy]

OMG 6 where to start?

1/ what do you mean by 'I wish they would get on with westernizing'- wasn't this the thrust of US action? Is it not still? To what effect?

2/ how many more billions do you think can be lifted to the consumer status on which western liberal democracy depends?

3/ if the US & friends had left the despots in place- would not the relative calm have been a better environment for propagation of freedom- than handing the excuse on a platter to seething angry poor but armed to the hilt Jihadists? Or is there something more sinister going on than promotion of 'freedom'?

4/ is the current mayhem in the ME not substantially the fault of misdirected if well meaning action by the US? Is there any indication that the current and recent strategies are working?

5/ to have anything like a Ghandi-esque, or Mandela revolution, requires a degree of ordinariness and sensitivity to resistance inherent in the system. and status quo. Instead of this kind of social cohesion being nurtured- we are seeing whole populations inoculated to extreme and regular acts of utter brutality and violence- often by the state- just as often by the resistance. There is no room for non violent action in an environment where people are randomly lined up and beheaded or shot, flogged or stoned to death, where children are taught the art of torture, slow and quick death, the values of suicide bombing and martyrdom. The environment being engendered in the MENA is conducive to only one kind of government- brutal dictatorship. Policy Fail.

[Keith_McClary]

if the US & friends had left the despots in place ...

Yeah, they have a great record of supporting modern democratic secularism in the ME. They never support despots.

[SeaGypsy]

Until the relatively common era, the west accepted dictatorships in many places, it still does in some. My feeling on the matter is that Obama genuinely wanted to be different in this regard and along with Clinton and Kerry has made a series of weighty blunders in pursuit of his Nobel Peace Prize sized idea of his capabilities. Obama & Co are learning how little they know about the Middle East- the hard way.

[Sixstrings]

David Satter writes in the Wall Street Journal about his expulsion from Russia:

The Russian decision to declare me persona non grata is more than an action against a single journalist. It is an admission that the system under President Vladimir Putin cannot tolerate free speech, even in the case of foreign correspondents.

Although their logic is hard to follow, all evidence suggests that the action against me was a high priority for the Russian authorities. No American correspondent has been expelled from Russia since the Cold War, and the action comes on the eve of the Sochi Olympics and follows steps by the regime to improve its image, including the freeing of such prisoners as former Yukos Oil Company head Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the members of the Pussy Riot punk rock band, and the crew of the Greenpeace vessel, Arctic Sunrise.

The action was also carried out in an unprecedented manner. During the Cold War, when U.S. correspondents were expelled, the Soviet authorities always offered a reason.

...

The authorities have reasons to view foreign journalists with unease. President Putin and a small group of his longtime cronies exercise not only unchallenged political power in Russia, they also control the country's most valuable economic assets. The system over which they preside is so corrupt that without the present high prices for oil and gas, it would face imminent collapse.

More important, the Putin system rests uneasily on unanswered questions from the past. According to the documentation of Yuri Saveliev, an expert on the physics of combustion who served on the official commission investigating the 2004 Beslan school massacre, the deaths of 334 hostages, most of them children, occurred after Russian forces stormed the gymnasium where the hostages were being held, using flamethrowers and grenade launchers. This attack, moreover, came one hour after agreement had been reached by local authorities in Beslan with a Chechen separatist leader to negotiate an end to the crisis.

Other questions that hang over the Putin regime are the fates of his murdered political opponents, Alexander Litvinenko, Anna Politkovskaya and Natalya Estemirova. But most important of all is the question of who was responsible for the 1999 apartment bombings in Russia that served as the pretext for Moscow's second war against the former Soviet republic of Chechnya. The bombings terrorized all of Russia, created a wave of patriotic fervor and swept the previously unknown Mr. Putin into the presidency. The Russian authorities blamed the bombings on Chechens, but when an unexploded bomb was discovered in the basement of one building, the terrorists were caught and proved to be agents of the Federal Security Service or FSB, a successor to the old KGB.

...

My purpose in going to Russia, however, was not to revisit the apartment bombings. The authorship of those explosions is the critical question of Russia's post-Soviet history; I presented evidence that the explosions were a provocation carried out by the FSB in my book and in 2007 testimony before the U.S. Congress.

Now, with the Sochi Olympics approaching, new terrorist acts are taking place that are candidates to join the long list of unexplained crimes. On Oct. 22, a Volgograd city bus was blown up, taking seven lives. The crime was quickly blamed on a female suicide bomber from Dagestan, Naida Asiyalova, and her common-law husband, Dmitri Sokolov, a Russian convert to Islam who allegedly outfitted Asiyalova with the bomb. Sokolov, however, had been in police custody, as the authorities themselves acknowledged, until shortly before the attack.

The outlines of the story follow a pattern in Russia of Islamists being freed from custody shortly before committing terrorist acts. In December, two more bombings struck Volgograd. Islamists in the region have sworn to disrupt the Sochi Games, but these episodes merit close scrutiny by the press.

I intend to keep writing about Russia. The rapid increase in living standards in the 2000s that persuaded Russians to ignore their lack of liberty is apparently a thing of the past. At the same time, Mr. Putin's attempt to treat Russia as a moral alternative to the West based on Russian Orthodoxy and homophobia is unlikely to succeed. The Russian leadership will either have to accede to public demands for the rule of law and a democratic choice or resort to ever greater repression.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB20001424052702304049704579320730181434984

[Sixstrings]

1/ what do you mean by 'I wish they would get on with westernizing'- wasn't this the thrust of US action? Is it not still? To what effect?

"Westernizing" is a cultural process, other cultures taking on our values via influence from trade, business, and media.

China, Russia, and the middle east have taken on consumerism. What we in the West would hope is that our other values will follow the consumerism -- our humanism, civil liberties, rule of law, environmental concern, and democratic values.

In the case of the middle east, some of these cultures are so different and alien to us, that it's just going to take some more time. They're not all the same -- Turkey westernized a long time ago, and have a moderate islam.

So we definitely have a culture war going on, but my point SG is that even if we have a common adversary it doesn't make Putin's Russia kosher. Nazi Germany had consumerism and was Western but they didn't have the best part of our values.

History has proven that a capitalist fascist state is the most dangerous adversary, more than communist, more than religious. If we ever do see another fascist juggernaut get going, another Nazi Germany, then that's going to be a very big problem because business married to state married to a strong man leader cult, married to the state religion too, but without all the democracy and human rights, it's just pure evil.

Seriously we figured all this out in the 18th Century, no? Fascism is bad. Tyranny is bad. Period.

(I don't give Russians the same pass that I give the muslim countries or even China -- Russia is *European*, they Westernized starting with Peter the Great in the 1700s. A Russian isn't alien to us like a tribal Afghan is, and Russians are not Chinese, it's just time to finally get with the program here after all those tsars and then Soviets and now Putin -- democratize already, there is no defense for dictatorship when you know better.

This is like a member of the family turning Nazi, that's why the West doesn't like it, Russians went from one extreme, communism, to the hard right extreme. It would be just as concerning if Australia took this turn, or France, or Italy. In the case of Russia, they've got that nuke arsenal, they still do war games about Poland, so Russia will always be a special concern.)

EDIT: I gotta lay off this Russia stuff, I always go overboard. It would just be nice if after securing power, Putin had changed. The world would have forgotten his past, and Russia wouldn't have such a bad rap. It will be nice if post Putin they can get someone more modern in there that's not giving off Nazi vibes.

[SeaGypsy]

Turkey has one of the highest degrees of public support for suicide bombing Jihadis and is in serious danger of requiring a reset aka Egypt style.

"Fascism is bad, tyranny is bad, period" well then 6 WTF is going on in the failed states of the MENA? Petty tribal tyranny and brutality to put fascism to shame.

You shouldn't just quit on Russia but on international matters, geopolitics altogether. As I have reminded you previously, if we want CNN we can turn on our TVs.

[Strummer]

History has proven that a capitalist fascist state is the most dangerous adversary, more than communist, more than religious. If we ever do see another fascist juggernaut get going, another Nazi Germany, then that's going to be a very big problem

Yes, we know that. That's why support for the USA among the people of the world, western countries included, is at its lowest point in postwar history. The USA today is around half-way towards a "fascist juggernaut".

[radon1]

Basically, it looks like retards on one side pushing retards on the other side (this is about the topic, not about the discussion in the thread, haven't read the entire thread yet).

Having said that, I've heard this guy Satter over the radio - his Russian is excellent, he has property in Russia - overall, he invested himself into the country in all senses. Kind of an expatriate that you would really like to have - and unfortunately, that type of people is a small minority among them. But looking a bit deeper into the story - the man earns living shilling out conspiracy books. Uses proceeds from spewing over the place that feeds him to buy expensive flats in Moscow. What a joke.

Expel RT, eye for an eye, and be settled with that. This will help remove burden from the Russian budget incidentally, and this would be handy.

[Sixstrings]

Expel RT, eye for an eye, and be settled with that. This will help remove burden from the Russian budget incidentally, and this would be handy.

RT has first amendment constitutional freedom of speech. We settled this centuries ago in the US, one of our presidents got a "alien and sedition" act passed because he didn't like the awful things the press said about him. Obviously, the Supreme Court overturned that as unconstitutional.

This is an old old story, it's a dictator that shuts down newspapers, or bans books, or journalists wind up mysteriously dead, and foreign correspondents are expelled because they're critical of the government.

Anyhow, was he talking about that bombings stuff on the radio? Have you heard both sides? Is it like the 9/11 truther thing over here, where you see both sides of it and can make up your own mind?

I've seen all the truther stuff debunked. Free speech for all is the best way to handle this, sure a crackpot conspiracy book may get published but then others have free speech to debunk it.

So what's the deal in Russia, they can't allow a free speech marketplace where the truth sorts out on its own? What is the government afraid of, that too many people will believe something that's not true? That's really not the case, free speech actually does work. If what Satter is saying is crackpot stuff, then he needn't be expelled and banned from the country, if you've got free speech then other media is free to debunk him and the truth comes out that way.

[Sixstrings]

Q&A with Satter, he's been reporting in Russia since the 1970s. Turns out, the Soviets banned him a few times too:

In 1979, there was an attempt to expel me when I was the Financial Times correspondent in Moscow and I was accused of hooliganism, again in an incident that they created, that they organized.

I went with my mother and sister to visit the town in Ukraine from which my mother’s family originated and that town later became famous. It’s Chernobyl.

At that time it was just a sleepy little place, and we got permission after going through a complicated bureaucratic process to go there and the authorities tried to cut short our visit and I refused to allow that and in fact I insisted that we stay for the full time that we were authorized to be there. They then wrote in a newspaper that I was guilty of hooliganism because of this and they demanded that I be thrown out.

...

And then over the course of the next 20 years or so I did not have difficulty, but there began to be problems again after I wrote an article about the Beslan school massacre in which Russian troops opened fire on the hostages and killed hundreds of them, and I said this was a crime against humanity.

After that the foreign ministry refused to sponsor me for a correspondent’s visa, but they allowed me to continue to come to the country on short-term business visas. And then this most recent incident.

...

And then over the course of the next 20 years or so I did not have difficulty, but there began to be problems again after I wrote an article about the Beslan school massacre in which Russian troops opened fire on the hostages and killed hundreds of them, and I said this was a crime against humanity.

After that the foreign ministry refused to sponsor me for a correspondent’s visa, but they allowed me to continue to come to the country on short-term business visas. And then this most recent incident.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/russia/140116/us-journalist-david-satter-barred-russia-q-a

Sounds like the government just doesn't like what he reports on. Fine, expel the American, but does the same thing happen to Russian journalists? Is it all state controlled now? Or do Russians have any journalists like a David Satter who are allowed to do investigative journalism critical of the government?

By the way, if we're back to Cold War rules now, then the US is within rights to deny a Russian journalist a visa in retaliation -- this is what happened back with the Soviets.

RT could get around this by hiring American staff. Americans have 1st amendment free speech. If the Financial Times hired Russian reporters, would they be as free and safe as an American working for RT?

(free speech is still the best, let's not ban reporters we don't like -- like with RT, I know their goal is propaganda and it's all negative about the US but still the reporting is honest and I like aggressive journalism, they add another viewpoint and report on things that our domestic media maybe won't. Same is true for someone like a Satter, he does investigative journalism on things that maybe Russian media won't, but apparently the Russian government can't tolerate that.)

[Sixstrings]

Journalist groups condemn Satter's expulsion:

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) have condemned the Russian government's decision to expel US journalist David Satter and called for them to allow him to return to the country.

"The decision of the Russian government to expel the highly respected journalist David Satter undermines the country's commitment to freedom of expression and basic human rights," said IFJ President Jim Boumelha. "We call on Russia authorities to reverse their decision and allow Satter to reenter the country, so he can return to his home and continue his work as a journalist."

According to reports, the US Embassy in Moscow has been informed of the move and lodged a formal diplomatic protest. US Embassy officials have sought an explanation, but have not obtained one from Russian authorities.

"Satter has done nothing wrong, but it seems that the Russian government has taken this opportunity to rid themselves of a journalist who dares to question their methods and reveal the truth about wrongdoings," said EFJ President Mogens Blicher Bjerregård.

"Unfortunately we have seen other similar exclusions of journalists, such as the Danish newspaper reporter Vibeke Sperling, who was a correspondent in Russia for many years before being expelled ten years ago. We urge Russian authorities to revise their view on foreign journalists doing their job."
http://www.ifj.org/en/articles/ifj-ef-call-for-u-s-journalist-david-satter-to-be-readmitted-to-russia