The NY Times has had only a handful of fluent Russian speakers in its Moscow bureau for years & years, and Moscow has long been an important assignment. I think the reason is that they don't care what ordinary people think or talk about - all that matters is what the local elite (which speaks English) and the U.S. embassy thinks.
Doug --- I know a guy who writes on the Russian media and is incapable of reading, watching or listening to it.
Most Russians in the elite don't know English. Putin knows only a smattering. Fluent German, though.