Russian media group Obyedinyonniye Media announced Friday that it would stop publishing its weekly newspaper, Moskovskiye Novosti, on Jan 1.

Obyedinyonniye Media, owned by Israeli-Russian businessman Arkady Gaidamak, also has other media assets including the radio station Business FM.

The group also publishes Moskovskiye Novosti's sister English-language edition, The Moscow News, in partnership with Russia's news agency, RIA-Novosti.

So far it is not clear if this move would affect The Moscow News.

“We do not see any commercial profit in continuing the development of Moskovskiye Novosti in its current format,” according to Daniil Kupsin, general director of Obyedinyonniye Media, in a statement. “However, the newspaper could be relaunched at some future date in a new format.”

"A decision has been made to redirect efforts into creating and developing successful media projects that are more cost-effective and profitable," Kupsin's statement said.

During the 1980s, Moskovskiye Novosti was prominent as a leading champion of Mikhail Gorbachev's policies of glasnost and perestroika.

The fate of the English-language weekly The Moscow News is worth observing. Earlier in March, The Moscow News relaunched in a move principally financed by RIA-Novosti. It is now run by a nonprofit organisation, controlled 50-50 by RIA-Novosti and Obyedinyonniye Media, The Moscow Times reported.

"I don't know anything about it or what will happen," said an anonymous Moscow News journalist Sunday. "I only heard of it when someone told me that they had seen it on the news."

She speculated that the managerial silence meant the news only affected Moskovskiye Novosti.