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During the post-Soviet 1990s, a popular political-satire show called Kukly ran on the Russian independent network NTV. Then-President Boris Yeltsin, for example, was regularly depicted as a feeble drunk. For about a decade, the show featured puppets that lampooned prominent political and cultural figures—until one episode, in which Vladimir Putin showed up as a grotesque, wicked dwarf. Soon after, Putin’s administration pressured NTV executives to drop the character, and ultimately the show was permanently canceled.

For people who know about it, Kukly represents a turning point in media freedom for Russia. For our two guests this week, Anne Applebaum, an Atlantic staff writer, and Garry Kasparov, the host of Aut

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