Russia's Only Independent TV Channel Forced Into Meager Studio

As other Russian television channels have grown increasingly subservient in 2014, providing propaganda backing for the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and Russia's aggressive policy toward Ukraine, Dozhd news channel didn't follow the lead -- and is now paying for it. President Vladimir Putin's government has been careful not to order the channel to shut down, but a Kremlin-instigated smear campaign has driven this rare independent broadcaster to the brink of demise. A Soviet-era apartment in central Moscow now houses the studio of Dozhd, whose combined online and TV audience is about 12 million. Anchorman Pavel Lobkov sits on a chair in what was once a spacious living room.