Russia pulls independent TV station off air

Russia abruptly pulled the plug on its only nationwide independent television station yesterday, giving the Kremlin a monopoly of the airwaves for the first time since the Soviet era.

Moscow has said the fate of TV6 is purely a business matter following a court ruling upholding a shareholder's complaint that the station was bankrupt.

However, it has raised concern over President Vladimir Putin's tolerance of dissent and the independence of the courts, which Washington said seemed to act on political orders.

At midnight on Monday, a TV6 talk show host was interrupted mid-sentence and replaced with test pattern stripes and the message: "We have been pulled off the air".