Elena Milashina / CPJ Moscow Correspondent

Shortly after the May 7 presidential inauguration of Vladimir Putin, the Russian parliament passed four major bills in record time–all of them meant to counter the protests that first erupted in the country in December 2011.

Three years ago this week, Natalya Estemirova, a contributor to the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta and a local staffer for the Moscow-based rights group Memorial, was murdered in the North Caucasus, Russia’s volatile region, where she was famous for her work as a defender of human rights. 

Russia’s leading independent media head into Sunday’s elections–in which Vladimir Putin is expected to be handed his third presidential term–burdened by a series of warnings. Over the past few months, beginning with the parliamentary elections held December 4, Kremlin allies have taken several steps designed to put news outlets on alert for uncensored coverage of…

A year ago, on a November night, two unidentified assailants awaited Oleg Kashin, a correspondent for the Russian business daily Kommersant, by his home on a central Moscow street, a 10-minute walk from the Kremlin. The two had hidden steel rods in bouquets of flowers.

Russia’s Investigative Committee has named the main suspects in the October 7, 2006, murder of Anna Politkovskaya. But the news did not cause a stir. Russian journalists reacted to it rather languidly; for instance, Novaya Gazeta, where Politkovskaya worked, did not make any notable comments. This is not because Politkovskaya’s murder–now five years old–has been…