Derk Sauer, who has died aged 72, was a Dutch media titan who helped facilitate the rise of Russian independent journalism, an institution that he fought to save even as all the others in his adopted country crumbled around him. His publications, the Moscow Times and Vedomosti, were powerhouses and proving grounds for many of the country’s leading Russian and foreign journalists, while glossies he published in Moscow, such as Cosmopolitan, pioneered that market and became, he would claim, a “bible for young women” in the newly emancipated Russia.
As Russia sank deeper into authoritarianism, Sauer backed embattled media projects and then finally returned to the Netherlands after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. But he provided safe harbour for dozens of the country’s independent journalists who were working in exile awaiting a safer time – likely after Vladimir Putin dies – when they might return home.
