How Putin’s media crackdown signals a new totalitarianism in Russia

The killing overnight of an American journalist in Ukraine has grabbed the headlines, but it’s just the latest stage in an increasingly brutal war on independent journalism by the Russian state both in Ukraine and Russia itself.

Coupled with Putin’s “make Russia great again” wartime rhetoric, it’s dragging the country back to a brutal 20th century totalitarianism, but with a dangerous expansive nationalism, not communism, as its ideological core.

Inside Russia it’s the final signal that the invasion of Ukraine is as much about remaking Russia internally — from a kleptocratic authoritarianism to a nationalist totalitarianism — as it is about restoring imperial boundaries.