President Vladimir Putin (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

This morning, I tuned to the Voice of Russia (a.k.a. Radio VR) English language service to hear the state news agency’s take on the sweeping changes President Vladimir Putin implemented yesterday.

I expected the story to be somewhat buried amongst international headlines, but instead I heard no mention within the one hour news broadcast. [Please note update at end of article.]

Here’s a recording of the broadcast from today at 13:00 on 12,075 kHz (which begins to fade toward the end):

I then searched through some spectrum recordings I made yesterday and discovered VOR’s American Edition broadcast on 9,395 kHz, starting at 23:00 UTC.

Even though this is the American Edition, I would have expected some mention of the news agency changes in the international news selection.

Ironically, VOR News prominently featured an article on their website yesterday regarding these changes within the state media. Indeed, it was the VOR News article that I posted yesterday on the SWLing Post.

Perhaps Putin’s move will actually make previous news reports regarding the demise of VOR on shortwave null and void? Only time will tell.

On a side note, I imagine this move by Putin could lower Russia’s position on the 2014 Press Freedom Index–they’re currently listed at 148 out of a possible 179 (with Finland in the number 1 position and Eritrea having the least press freedom at 179).

(Update: Please note that the title of this post used to read, “Voice of Russia news lacks any mention of sweeping changes to state news agency.” I’ve since updated the title to more accurately reflect my point, by replacing the word “news” with “broadcasts.”  I also added the audio from yesterday’s American Hour and removed some links to international media. Many thanks to those of you who pointed out my confusing message.)