Today is World Press Freedom Day. To commemorate it, Russia faced a massive three-front attack this week over it's outrageous attacks on Russian media.

First, the United Nations declared it would give a posthumous award to Anna Politkovskaya as "the person who made a notable contribution to the defence of press freedom."

Next, Freedom House issued its annual report on international press freedom and declared Russia to be "unfree" and describing a neo-Soviet "information curtain" descending across the continent.

Finally, the U.S. State Department, hardly a bastion of hawkish beligerance, praised both the U.N. and Freedom House actions and declared that Russia is among the seven worst offenders in terms of press freedom, along with Afghanistan, Venezuela, Pakistan, the Philippines, Egypt and Lebanon.