Savik Shuster

Savik Shuster (; ; born Ševelis Šusteris; November 22, 1952) is a journalist and television anchor. He presented The Freedom By Savik Shuster, and starting in 2005, The Freedom of Speech (ICTV), All court cases were subsequently closed. In 2019, Shuster came back to Ukraine as the anchor of Svoboda slova Savika Shustera on the Ukraine TV channel.

From 2001 to 2004, Shuster presented talk shows on the Russian channel NTV.

Shuster holds Canadian and Italian citizenships.

Biography Born in Vilnius (then former part of the Soviet Union now the capital of Lithuania) Shuster left the Soviet Union 1971, his parents (his father was a football coach) emigrated from their native Vilnius via Israel to Canada. A distant uncle, who was vice president of the oil company Shell Canada, intervened with Soviet Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin on their behalf. Allegedly Shuster's and his employer NTV's coverage of the Moscow hostage crisis infuriated (then) President Vladimir Putin in 2002. In 2004 his show "Freedom of Speech" was awarded a "TEFI" by the Russian Academy of Television. Shuster's last Russian show was cancelled by NTV because "the audience was too old". According to Shuster, this was not the real reason the station closed his talkshow: "the truth was the Kremlin could no longer afford an open, live show".

Following the announcement of the copyright lawsuit, one Ukrainian journalist wrote:"What is the difference between "Freedom" on INTER and "Freedom of Speech" on ICTV?

- ''The ICTV studio has air conditioning." According to Shuster, in 2008, "When our program is on the air, it is watched on every third TV set in the country".

In September 2009 Shuster claimed "unknown people" tried to sabotage the airing of his program "Shuster Live".

May 21, 2010 deputy head of the Administration of Ukraine Hanna Herman stated the wish that Ukraine's most popular political talks shows would be anchored only by Ukrainian journalists, "We are still victims to that imperial complex that 'everything coming from Moscow is good, everything Ukrainian is bad'".

In January 2011 all Shuster programs moved to Pershyi Natsionalnyi. Meanwhile, the number of viewers of his show had dropped from 1 million in 2006 to 600,000 people in 2011.

Since February 2013 "Shuster Live" was again aired on Inter TV. But it moved back to Pershyi Natsionalnyi in March 2014 and was aired on that channel till 2015. It moved to 1+1. But that channel cancelled the show and starting in December 2015 the show was aired on Shuster's own independent 3S.tv. The episode of "Freedom of Speech" of 25 February 2022 was not broadcast due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Language of presenting Shuster presents his (Ukrainian) programs in Russian. According to him, he "was allowed to do it because he was not ethnic Russian and everyone understood the language. But at first, on Ukrainian TV, Russian-speaking TV host was a phenomenon. Now the issue of the language is not a burning issue, there were other problems". In a 2009 interview with the Financial Times Shuster does not believe a revival of Russian democracy will happen: "If there is a political transformation in Russia, it will not be towards democracy. They have lost the foundation for a democratic transformation. They have decided to build power by looking for supporters among the intolerant. I think a fascist dictatorship is more likely than Nemtsov or Kasparov or Kasyanov coming to power".

Family Shuster is currently married to Olga Nevskaya (second wife). His first wife was Italian. She and his family continued to live in Florence (Italy) during his career in Russia and Ukraine.