president is off limits. never more so than now. in the past year, independent media here have been almost completely crushed. >> it's a feeling of -- tense. and it's all the time. you can never be -- you can never be sure that tomorrow you will, you will be all right. you can never be sure that tomorrow your tv station will still be alive. >> reporter: katerina is an anchor at tv rain. one of russia's last independent stations. designated a foreign agent. kremlin law that can snuff it out. she is all too familiar with state tv's manipulations. how they use western media to play counter against broadcast colleagues. >> just like that there is a person who says, are we going to fight russia because of this corrupted eastern european