MOSCOW, October 31 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Vladimir Putin told members of the Dutch media Monday that he does not have the intention, nor the possibility, of controlling the Russian media. There are currently 47,000 periodicals printed in Russia and about 3,000 radio and TV stations, the president said. "I am not even speaking about the Internet, which is developing with complete freedom, and entirely without control - and the number of Internet users is continually growing," he said. However, Putin did say Russia has significant problems with freedom of speech and that the country's rank of 138th in the Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom ranking should be noted.
Media freedom is one of the basic conditions for the development of democracy, fighting corruption and creating a free society, he said.
"The most important thing is for us to provide economic independence among the media, so that they do not serve economic groups or oligarchs, but work in the interests of society."
