Washington has repeatedly accused the Russian government of stifling democratic freedoms, including freedom of the press, but the Kremlin has dismissed the criticism.
The resolution said Russia had not yet solved the murders of investigative journalists, such as Paul Klebnikov, editor of Forbes Russia, Anna Politkovskaya of Novaya Gazeta, and military correspondent at the Kommersant daily Ivan Safronov.
A U.S. journalist of Russian descent, Klebnikov, 41, was gunned down when leaving his office in downtown Moscow in the summer of 2004. The first editor of Forbes Russia, he investigated business dealings and corruption cases in Russia, the document said.
Politkovskaya, 48, was shot dead in October 2006 at her Moscow apartment bloc in an apparent contract killing. She was a strong critic of the Chechen war, and exposed human rights violations by the Russian government in the troubled republic, the document said.
Safronov, 51, was found dead in downtown Moscow March 2, 2007. Investigators established that he had fallen out of a fifth floor window in his apartment. Russian prosecutors said they suspected forced suicide and were looking for possible suspects.
The U.S. resolution said Safronov censured Russia's military programs, and was writing a report about potential Russian arms supplies to the Middle East, including to "countries sponsoring terrorism" - Iran and Syria.
The document also cited the International News Safety Institute, which said almost 90 reporters had been killed in Russia since January 1996 and many of the murders remained unsolved.
President Vladimir Putin's argument against accusations of clamping down on media freedom has been that there are over 40,000 print editions and 3,500 television and radio stations in the country and it is impossible to control all of them. He has also said the majority of media outlets have foreign investors.
