Political pressure seen in Russia radio shakeup

* Ekho Moskvy radio says Putin's public criticism is cause

* Putin's spokesman says prime minister not behind changes

* Critics say government seeking more control

By Alissa de Carbonnel and Steve Gutterman

MOSCOW, Feb 14 (Reuters) - A Russian radio station critical of the Kremlin is facing a shakeup of its board of directors that its editor said on Tuesday appeared aimed at puttting pressure on it to take a more positive approach to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Ekho Moskvy editor Alexei Venediktov said the station's majority owner Gazprom-Media, a unit of state-controlled gas giant Gazprom, had demanded changes that would give the company control over decisions by the nine-member board.

Ekho Moskvy said it suspected the board overhaul was prompted by criticism from Putin, who accused the station of "pouring shit" over him and of serving U.S. interests in a striking public dressing-down of Venediktov last month.

Venediktov said in the shakeup, to be sealed at a meeting in late March, would push out two independent directors and add Ekho Moskvy's director, a management figure, meaning that the owner could count on at least five votes on the board.

"I see this, without a doubt, as an attempt to adjust editorial policy ... and not on the initiative of Gazprom," Venediktov said on the station. Asked whose initiative he believed it was, he replied: "The highest political leaders".

He said he and his deputy would leave the board, even though he had been asked to stay.

The shakeup raised fears of a state campaign to silence dissent as Putin, facing the biggest opposition protests since he came to power in 2000, prepares for a March 4 vote expected to return him to the Kremlin for a six-year term as president.

Putin's spokesman said the prime minister was not behind the shakeup, but a Gazprom-Media statement seemed to suggest the timing of the decision was motivated in part by Putin's criticism of the station.

The company had planned to make changes on the board next summer but decided to do so sooner after "taking into consideration the heightened attention that various sides have paid to the radio station recently", Gazprom-Media development director Irina Zinkova said in the statement.

Yevgeny Yasin, a respected economist who is one of the independent directors to be replaced, said the goal was to increase control over one of the few prominent broadcast outlets that does not toe the Kremlin line.

"I believe the leadership wants to establish control over independent mass media outlets, and over Ekho Moskvy first of all," he said on Ekho Moskvy.

PUTIN AND PROTESTS

Russia's leading nationwide news channels and many print media all came either directly or indirectly under state ownership during Putin's 2000-2008 presidency.

Ekho Moskvy, which says it has 900,000 daily listeners in the nation of 143 million, has become a standard-bearer for a growing number of independent online media and satellite television stations in recent months.

The showdown comes at a time of heightened political tension in Russia. Tens of thousands of people have turned out for opposition protests three times since December, venting anger over suspicions of fraud in a Dec. 4 parliamentary vote and dismay at Putin's intention to rule for years to come.

"For years Ekho Moskvy has been the focus point of the opposition media in Russia. Now, before the election, the strongest pressure is coming to bear on this sharpest point," Sergei Parkhomenko, a journalist and protest organiser who has a weekly comment show on Ekho Moskvy, told Reuters.

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed suggestions that the prime minister was behind the initiative as "fantasizing".

"I know for a fact that Putin gave no such order," Interfax news agency quoted Peskov as saying, though he acknowledged Putin had often voiced irritation over what he viewed as the station's "reconstructive, biased and prejudiced criticism".

Venediktov, who will keep his post as editor-in-chief, expressed confidence Putin is not trying to close the station, and vowed not to soften its bite.

But Putin's election campaign manager, film director Stanislav Govorukhin, suggested he hoped the changes on the board have just that result.

"I hope that we will soon hear a new Ekho Moskvy," Govorukhin tweeted on Tuesday.