Paul, a tabloid reporter, flees Berlin and begins working at a gossip magazine in Moscow, run by his mentor Alexei Onegin. He quickly succeeds in bringing back the glory and a higher circulation for the paper. His life is a big party until he meets the beautiful activist Katja and falls in love with her. She convinces him to run a politically oriented obituary in the magazine. From then on chain events will tear Paul’s life apart. He is arrested as a terrorist. When released with Onegin’s help, he is confronted with other secrets from his past and has to solve the political conspiracy against him. Based on events surrounding the Moscow terrorist attacks of 1999, <The Fourth State> tells the gripping story of a gossip reporter who goes to Moscow to find himself but fall victim to Russian doemstic policy intrigues. The story paints a fascinating and highly controversial political image of contemporary Moscow, where archaic power structure, extravagant lifestyles and political activism collide.