Shuttering of VOA and RFE/RL Threatens Independent Journalism in Post-Soviet Sphere

VOA and RFE/RL are among the only remaining independent media in authoritarian post-Soviet countries (Wikimedia Commons).

President Donald Trump signed an executive order seeking to dismantle the U.S. Agency for Global Media and the outlets it funds, including Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), and Radio Free Asia, on March 14, per the New York Times. Since then, Voice of America’s journalists and other employees have taken administrative leave, and many of the outlet’s radio frequencies have either stopped broadcasting or started airing music instead of regular programming. Voice of America serves as a vital source of independent media in authoritarian post-Soviet countries that have cracked down on local media, including Belarus, Russia, and several Central Asian states. Its absence will further limit access to alternative information in these countries.

The White House accused Voice of America of “leftist bias” in a press release titled “The Voice of Radical America.” Voice of America’s charter protects its editorial independence, regardless of the administration in power in the United States, and much of the outlet’s coverage focuses on national issues in the countries it broadcasts in rather than U.S. domestic issues and partisan topics.

Voice of America, which began broadcasting in Russian in 1947, served as one of the only independent sources of information behind the Iron Curtain, along with other U.S. government-funded outlets like RFE/RL, according to Meduza. The Soviet Union jammed Voice of America and RFE/RL’s radio broadcasts, but the outlets remained popular among Soviet dissidents, who found ways around the jamming.

Today, Voice of America has an estimated weekly audience of 354 million people and remains an essential source of information across the former Soviet Union, along with RFE/RL. For example, the Editor-in-Chief of TV Rain, an independent Russian media outlet, noted that RFE/RL was a crucial source of information during the massive 2020 protests in Belarus. Demonstrates protested the allegedly rigged re-election of President Aleksandr Lukashenko.

Independent Russian media outlets have praised RFE/RL’s regional projects, which focus on more local issues, including Sever.Realii, Siberia.Realii, Azatlyk, and Caucus.Realii, among others. Independent Russian journalists argue such projects are “key to the survival of independent journalism in Russia and are exemplary in their professionalism.” 

According to Meduza, in 2017, RFE/RL and Voice of America were among the first eight media outlets that the Russian government declared “foreign agents” for their coverage critical of the Putin regime. In February 2024, the Russian government declared Radio Liberty an “undesirable organization,” banning it from operating in Russia.

According to The Moscow Times, Russian officials privately celebrated the shuttering of Voice of America and RFE/RL while publicly downplaying the move’s significance. Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of the Russian state-backed Russia Today media network and a prominent pro-Putin propagandist, on the other hand, publicly celebrated Trump’s move, saying, “We couldn’t shut them down, unfortunately, but America did so itself.”