Before he could press record, a string of alarming thoughts flashed through Vladimir Pozner’s head. Are you sure you want to do this? Won’t you get into trouble? Somebody upstairs may really not like it.

Then he remembered the advice of a family friend, a Soviet dissident: Make sure you never get to the point where you want to spit at your own reflection in the mirror.

So the veteran journalist, who has his own show on state television’s Channel One, ignored the “little, cowardly, voice” and pressed ahead. In his video, he compared the persecution of Russian journalist Ivan Golunov on drug charges to being spat in the face. “I refuse to be afraid,” he explains.

In Russia, where state media are expected to toe the Kremlin line, such unsalted criticism of the authorities is rare. And it is even more unusual to hear it employed in public to support an investigative journalist who has made it his mission to expose the corrupt and powerful.