Migranyan said that Putin began establishing common rules of the game for all actors and started with an attempt to restore the role of the government as the institution expressing combined interests of the citizens and "capable of controlling the state’s financial, administrative and media resources". According to Migranyan: "Naturally, in line with Russian traditions, any attempt to increase the state’s role causes an intense repulsion on the part of the liberal intellectuals, not to mention a segment of the business community that is not interested in the strengthening of state power until all of the most attractive state property has been seized". Migranyan claimed that oligopolies' view of democracy was set on a premise of whether they were close to the center of power, rather than "objective characteristics and estimates of the situation in the country". Migranyan said "free" media, owned by e.g. Berezovsky and Gusinsky, were nothing similar to free media as understood by the West, but served their only economic and political interests while "all other politicians and analysts were denied the right to go on the air".