Vesti FM

• 1. Introduction

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  Vesti FM went on air at exactly 6:00 in the morning on the 5th of February 2008, broadcasting on 97.6 MHz across Moscow. What started as a local signal reaching Moscow and St. Petersburg has grown into a national Russian radio network heard across more than sixty regions. Owned and operated by VGTRK, one of Russia's largest state media companies, Vesti FM carries a name that translates simply to "News FM." It sits alongside Radio Rossii and Radio Mayak in the first multiplex of digital television in Russia, delivered via DVB-T2 technology. But the most consequential chapter in its story lies not in Moscow, nor in its FM dial position, but in a powerful transmitter site on the far edge of a disputed territory in Transnistria.

• 2. The Grigoriupol Transmitter

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  At the end of the 1960s, Soviet engineers began constructing a powerful transmitter site in Grigoriupol, in the Maiac region of Transnistria. Its original purpose was broadcasting soft propaganda toward Western countries. After the Soviet collapse, that facility passed into the hands of the de facto Transnistrian government, which sold it to the Russian state media company RIA Novosti in 2007. The Russian government then directed that Vesti FM be transmitted through Grigoriupol's medium-wave infrastructure. Starting in 2014, just before the Russo-Ukrainian War, Vesti FM began broadcasting on 1413 kHz from that site, with a transmitter power of 500 kilowatts. A signal that strong reaches not only all of Ukraine but also a substantial portion of Europe.

• 3. An Antenna Under Attack

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  On the 26th of April 2022, unknown perpetrators destroyed one of the multiple antenna systems at the Grigoriupol site. The explosion was part of the wider series of attacks in Transnistria recorded that month. Despite the damage, the medium-wave station continued operating on 1413 kHz. The attack drew attention to just how central the site had become to Russian broadcasting infrastructure, and to the fragility of physical transmitter arrays when geopolitical tensions spill into the physical world. Vesti FM's manager, Ekaterina Shchekina, oversees a station whose reach now depends in part on infrastructure built in a Soviet-era disputed territory.

• 4. Vladimir Solovyov's Remarks

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  In June 2017, television and radio journalist Vladimir Solovyov ignited a public controversy during his program on Vesti FM. Speaking about participants in that year's protests, Solovyov called them "the eternal two percent of shit," "the children of corrupt officials," and "majoritarian imbeciles." He went further, suggesting that without police intervention, counter-protesters "would simply tear them to pieces." Journalist Alexander Nevzorov joined the protesters in criticizing that statement. Solovyov's remarks on Vesti FM were not an isolated incident. Similar comments directed at opposition journalists and audience members continued to appear on the station after that episode.