A lot has been written and said about Mikhail Gorbachev who died at the age of 91 on Tuesday.

He was, after all, a man who helped create the world as we know it today.

But among his many achievements, was the foresight to know the importance of a free and fair press in Russia following the lifting of the iron curtain.

Following a police raid on a Russian media outlet at the turn of the millennium, he wrote: “Without a free press people don't have a voice. They can be used as the authorities see fit; they can be manipulated.”

This, as it turned out, became true in the years after he wrote those words.

Vladimir Putin now has tight control over most of the Russian media. He is the puppet master in charge of the country’s television channels, newspapers and radio stations.

According to the Economist, the Kremlin gives editors and producers ‘metodichki’, or guidance on what to cover and how.

And since the war in Ukraine started earlier this year, that control has only got tighter.

Independent TV channels, newspapers and website have been shut down. Censorship laws bar reporting that cites unofficial sources. Calling the war a “war” – rather than a “special military operation” – is a crime.

In the past, this repression has been even more extreme.

Seven journalists at Novaya Gazeta, one of the few independent news outlets in Russia, have been murdered because of their investigations since Gorbachev penned those words in 2000.

The paper’s editor Dmitry Muratov won the Nobel peace prize in 2021 – 31 years after Gorbachev won the medal. The Nobel committee said it was in recognition of his “efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace”.

Since the war in Ukraine began, Muratov has been attacked by pro-war protestors and the Kremlin has tried its hardest to shut the paper down.

These warnings may seem far off to us in the UK, and I am by no means saying that the situation for journalists here is akin to that of journalists in Russia – but other parts of Gorbachev’s warning do ring true.

He continued: “I'm also worried and dispirited by the apathy of the public. The journalists are having to defend themselves on their own. It's time we understood we shall never be a democratic state until we have learned to be citizens.”

Just this week police prevented the delivery of newspapers in what one editor called an “unprecedented assault on the freedom of the press”.

On Sunday Just Stop Oil activists had dug a tunnel underneath a road in Thurrock, Essex which is a key delivery route for a nearby oil terminal.

As it was feared the strength of the carriageway had been endangered, Essex Police took the decision to only allow “priority vehicles” to continue using the road, but did not allow lorries from a nearby newspaper printing press, preventing lorries delivering the Portsmouth News and Daily Mail from departing.

In response, Mark Waldron, editor of the Portsmouth News, wrote to the home secretary saying: “This was an unprecedented assault on the freedom of the press which should never have happened in a healthy democracy.

“Oil tankers and grocery lorries were allowed through but not newspaper vans.

“I call on you today to look into why this unacceptable and misguided decision was made; inform Essex Police and Thurrock Council that this decision overstepped their authority; give me assurances that, faced with a similar scenario, it will not be repeated.

“The free flow of reliable news and information is an essential tenet of UK democracy. It is frightening that the SCG (Strategic Co-ordination Group) came to a view so instinctively that the delivery of our newspaper was not a priority.”

At around the same, Liz Truss – who is looking increasingly likely to be our next prime minister – pulled out of a TV interview with the BBC.

This may seem an insignificant slight.

But, the would-be interviewer Nick Robinson argued, it was a symbolic one.

He said: “Good government requires accountability.

“Restoring trust in politics requires openness about how and why decisions have been reached.

“That is, in large part, the job of Parliament, not TV and radio interviewers like me.

“However, what we do has a role to play too.”

Politicians and public figures should face up to scrutiny, in the knowledge that doing so means we all get a better result in the end.

On this, and plenty of other things, Mikhail Gorbachev was right.