In the past few days, both the Zelensky administration in Kyiv and South Korea’s national spy agency have said that they believe North Korea has decided to send more than ten thousand troops to support Russia in its invasion of Ukraine. On October 18, following an emergency security meeting called by South Korea’s president, the country’s National Intelligence Service released an assessment claiming that the North is sending four brigades of 12,000 soldiers, including special forces, to Ukraine, which would be an unprecedented move, if true. Diplomats in Russia and North Korea say these reports are false. Meanwhile, American officials have warned repeatedly of the growing military cooperation between Russia and North Korea, saying that Washington has observed signs of increased material support to Moscow, including both artillery shells and missiles, such as KN-23 short-range ballistic missiles that have been recovered from wreckage in Ukraine. According to British journalists, North Korea supplies Russia with about half of the approximately three million artillery shells that Russian forces use annually in the war against Ukraine. However, Western officials have expressed skepticism about the claims that North Korea is sending large numbers of soldiers, apart from smaller groups of engineers and observers. For example, just the other day, NATO’s general secretary spoke at a press conference right alongside Zelensky and directly contradicted him, saying there is no evidence that North Korean soldiers are involved in the fight. For a crash course in Russian-North Korean relations and a hard look at recent claims from the Ukrainian and South Korean governments of thousands of North Korean soldiers flooding the battlefield in Ukraine, The Naked Pravda welcomed Dr. Fyodor Tertitskiy, a lecturer at Korea University and a leading researcher on North Korean politics. Timestamps for this episode: (3:15) The historical context of North Korea’s military strategy (5:41) South Korean diplomacy (7:45) Potential military aid and consequences (9:38) North Korean diplomatic tactics (12:06) China’s role in the Russian-North Korean alliance (14:46) Russia’s weapon purchases from North Korea (19:12) The historical context of Soviet/Russian-North Korean relations (25:04) Symbolic gestures for Vladimir PutinКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

The Russian government’s new draft budget for 2025 through 2027 was introduced to the State Duma this week in its first reading. The state’s proposed spending exceeds earlier predictions, with 41.5 trillion rubles (more than $435 billion) allocated for next year alone — and that may not be the final amount. A record share of the budget is classified as “secret” or “top secret” — nearly a third of all proposed expenditures.  To discuss the draft budget, focusing on allocations to the military, The Naked Pravda welcomed back Alexandra Prokopenko, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin, a former columnist for the business newspaper Vedomosti, and a former senior advisor at Russia’s Central Bank. Timestamps for this episode: (2:26) Breaking down Russia’s next round of federal spending on the military and national security (4:08) Economic implications and rising taxes (7:18) Russia’s National Wealth Fund and budget deficit (10:14) Patriotism and public-sector funding (11:54) Domestic (in)security (15:12) Lobbying and budget allocations (21:45) Western Sanctions and Russia’s economic resilienceКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

Wildberries founder and CEO Tatyana Kim (who recently restored her maiden name) has been having a hell of a time shaking loose her husband, Vladislav Bakalchuk, but their very public divorce is just the tip of the iceberg in what’s become a battle between some of the most powerful political groups in Russia’s North Caucasus. On September 18: Vladislav Bakalchuk tried to storm the company’s office in the Romanov Dvor business center — just a few hundred yards from the Kremlin itself. Bakalchuk has very publicly opposed the Wildberries-RussGroup merger and recently met with Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov to plead his case, winning the dictator’s support. At the Moscow office, Bakalchuk’s entourage had two former senior executives, but — more importantly — he was accompanied by former and current Chechen police officers and National Guardsmen, as well as trained martial artists from Chechnya, including former world and European taekwondo champion Umar Chichaev. According to Novaya Gazeta Europe, Chichaev fired his service weapon, though his status in the National Guard is a bit fuzzy. On the other side of the conflict, defending the Wildberries office was another team of police and police-adjacent men with ties to Ingushetia. According to the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, Wildberries had recently hired a private security company with ties to Ingush State Duma deputy Bekkhan Barakhoev, who, until three years ago, worked as a vice president of a subsidiary of Russ Outdoor — the smaller company now merging with Wildberries. The most important shadow figure at Russ Outdoor, meanwhile, is Suleiman Kerimov, a billionaire senator from Dagestan. The office shootout left two Ingush men dead and more than two dozen suspects in police custody, though Vladislav Bakalchuk miraculously escaped charges as a mere witness. He claims he merely showed up for a planned business meeting, but Tatyana Kim calls the incident a failed attempt at a hostile takeover. To learn more about this story and its broader political context, The Naked Pravda spoke to Ilya Shumanov, the general director of Transparency International-Russia in exile. Timestamps for this episode: (3:08) The power struggle between Kim and Bakalchuk (4:55) Suleiman Kerimov: Dagestan’s “shadow governor” (7:20) The Wildberries-RussGroup merger and its implications (9:47) Clan battles and regional tensions (21:44) The future of corporate raiding in RussiaКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

Last month, the FBI raided the homes of Scott Ritter, a former United Nations weapons inspector and critic of American foreign policy, and Dimitri Simes, a former think tank executive and an adviser to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. In late August, The New York Times reported that these searches were part of the U.S. Justice Department’s “broad criminal investigation into Americans who have worked with Russia’s state television networks.” In the past two weeks, U.S. officials have taken numerous measures against Russia Today and its affiliates and accelerated police actions against Russia-based individuals and entities accused of covert influence operations, including money laundering, sanctions violations, and unregistered foreign agent work. For example, the Justice Department announced the seizure of 32 Internet domains used in Russian government-directed foreign malign influence campaigns (colloquially referred to as “Doppelganger”), alleging that Russian companies used online domains to impersonate legitimate news entities and unique media brands to spread Russian government propaganda covertly, violating U.S. laws against money laundering and trademarks.  That same day, the Justice Department indicted two Russia-based employees of RT for conspiring to commit money laundering and conspiring to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act in a $10-million scheme to fund and direct a Tennessee-based company to publish and disseminate information “with hidden Russian-government messaging.” A day later, officials charged Dmitri Simes and his wife with participating in a plot to violate U.S. sanctions and launder money obtained from Russian state television. About a week later, the U.S. State Department issued a special “alert to the world,” declaring that new information obtained over the past year reveals that Russia Today has “moved beyond being simply a media outlet” and has become “an entity with cyber capabilities” that’s “also engaged in information operations, covert influence, and military procurement.” Washington claims that the Russian government embedded within RT in Spring 2023 an entity “with cyber operational capabilities and ties to Russian intelligence.” Based on these allegations, Meta — the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp — soon announced that it had banned Russia Today and its affiliates from all its platforms.  A day before that big announcement from the State Department, a jury in Tampa, Florida, convicted four American citizens of conspiracy to act as agents of the Russian government. Case evidence first reported by RFE/RL shows that the activists on trial secretly coordinated their activities and received funding from “Anti-Globalization Movement” head Alexander Ionov, who acted on orders from Russia’s Federal Security Service. To discuss this recent explosion of American police and diplomatic activity targeting RT and Russian covert influence operations in the U.S., The Naked Pravda spoke to RFE/RL journalist Mike Eckel, who coauthored the September 6 report on how Ionov and his FSB handlers “chatted and plotted to sow discord in the United States.” Timestamps for this episode: (5:54) The U.S. government’s coordinated campaign against Russian covert influence operations (7:18) Legal strategies when prosecuting Moscow’s malign activities (8:37) Alexander Ionov and the FSB (15:11) American activists and Russian covert operations (18:52) “Foreign agency” in the U.S. vs. in Russia (32:12) Dmitri Simes and Channel One (36:18) Scott Ritter and Russia TodayКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

The Pentagon says it’s confirmed that Iran has given “a number of close-range ballistic missiles to Russia.” While Washington isn’t sure exactly how many rockets are being handed over to Moscow, the U.S. Defense Department assesses that Russia could begin putting them to use within a few weeks, “leading to the deaths of even more Ukrainian civilians.” “One has to assume that if Iran is providing Russia with these types of missiles, that it’s very likely it would not be a one-time good deal, that this would be a source of capability that Russia would seek to tap in the future,” Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Major General Pat Ryder told reporters on September 10. That same day, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in London that the new supply of Iranian missiles will allow Russia to use more of its own longer-range ballistic missiles for targets that are farther from the frontline. To find out where the Russian-Iranian partnership is headed and what, if anything, changes in the Ukraine War with Tehran sending ballistic missiles to Moscow, The Naked Pravda spoke to Dr. Nicole Grajewski, a fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an associate researcher with the Belfer Center’s Project on Managing the Atom at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Dr. Grajewski also has a forthcoming book, titled Russia and Iran: Partners in Defiance from Syria to Ukraine. Timestamps for this episode: (1:54) Technical details about these ballistic missiles (5:05) The role of sanctions and the Iran nuclear deal (8:51) Iranian drones and ballistic missiles in Ukraine (10:16) Russian-Iranian military cooperation (16:07) Factional politics in Iran and RussiaКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

Russia’s federal censor has been throttling YouTube playback speeds for the last month or so, just like it slowed Twitter data transfer speeds back in 2021. Throughout August, Russian Internet users have reported sudden and widespread outages in access to popular apps and services like Telegram, WhatsApp, Skype, Wikipedia, Steam, Discord, and more. While the RuNet crackdown has become a familiar feature of the Putin regime, its technical side is hard to understand. For help with the science of Russian Internet censorship and surveillance, Meduza spoke to Sarkis Darbinyan, a senior legal counsel to the digital rights group RKS Global (which recently published a report titled “State of Surveillance: A Study on How the Russian State, Through Laws and Technology, Carries Out Digital Surveillance”) and Philipp Dietrich, a project officer for the “Risks of the Sovereign Internet for Russia and Beyond” project at the German Council on Foreign Relations’s Center for Order and Governance in Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia. Timestamps for this episode: (3:58) The technical underbelly of Internet throttling (6:24) Telegram’s public role and past political controversies in Russia (10:05) Police surveillance tools and data leaks (19:15) Meet SORM, the FSB’s surveillance system (30:54) VPNs, Google Global Cache, and the Internet’s CDN infrastructureКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

It’s been almost two weeks since the Ukrainian Armed Forces smashed through Russia’s border defenses in the Kursk region and began a surprise offensive that has advanced about 17 miles at its deepest point, according to Meduza’s estimates. Regional officials in Kursk have evacuated towns along the Ukrainian border, and more than 120,000 people have been forced to leave their homes. Vladimir Putin has met several times with top national security officials, but Russia’s president hasn’t yet bothered to make a national address, even though part of the country — a real part of the country, not just Ukrainian lands that Moscow claims — is now under foreign occupation. At the same time, Russian troops are still attacking Ukrainian defenses in the Donbas, where Kyiv remains vulnerable after months of slow Russian advances. The world is watching to see if the Kursk incursion can force the Kremlin to pull soldiers from eastern Ukraine. One of the most sensitive issues inside Russia related to Ukraine’s Kursk offensive is the use of conscript soldiers. To discuss the course of the Kursk incursion and to understand why sending conscripts into Russia’s new conflict zone is so tricky, The Naked Pravda spoke to RFE/RL journalists Mark Krutov and Sergey Dobrynin, who have tracked the war closely and recently wrote an article addressing how the Russian military plans to use conscripts amid Kyiv’s offensive in Kursk. Timestamps for this episode: (3:04) How Ukraine penetrated Russia’s border so easily (9:10) Comparisons to previous incursions and Ukraine’s Kharkiv counteroffensive (16:10) The role and impact of conscripts (29:00) Political sensitivity and Russian public reactionsКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the West has imposed over 16,000 sanctions on Russia, intending to cripple the economy driving the Kremlin’s war machine. But the much-anticipated collapse of Russia’s economy never came to pass. In fact, Russia’s wartime economy has proven to be surprisingly resilient, with the IMF estimating that Russia’s GDP grew by 3.5% in 2023 and will continue to grow by 3.2% in 2024. The Kremlin has managed to keep Russia’s economy afloat, in large part, by increased military spending and forging new partnerships with countries like China and India who don’t mind flying in the face of Western sanctions. And although the Kremlin touts all of this as evidence that the West and its sanctions have failed in their endeavors to defeat Russia, a closer look under the hood reveals a more desperate disposition. A recent Financial Times article paints a more bleak picture of Russia’s relative power in the world's geopolitical hierarchy and the economic consequences it brings. Financial Times’ Russia correspondent, Anastasiia Stognei, joined The Naked Pravda to reconcile these two vastly different images being painted of Russia’s economy and to discuss the potential long-term consequences of the war in Russia. Timestamps for this episode: (3:17) Sanctions and the Russian economy (6:22) Russia’s wartime economic strategies (15:23) Long-term effects on Russian society (24:55) Future trade relations and economic outlookКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

It’s a tense moment for Ukraine. The optimism that followed Ukraine’s early successes on the battlefield in 2022 started to fade last summer as its counteroffensive failed to achieve a breakthrough. By late 2023, Ukraine’s then-commander-in-chief said the war had reached a “stalemate” — and by the start of the spring, things were looking even worse, with high-ranking Ukrainian officers warning a collapse of the front lines could be imminent without more weapons from Washington. In mid-April, U.S. lawmakers finally passed a $60-billion aid package, buying Ukraine some time and some hope. But Ukraine’s defense still faces major headwinds, and Russian forces have continued gradually advancing along various sections of the front line in recent weeks. Amid this enormous uncertainty, a new report from the International Crisis Group titled “Ukraine: How to Hold the Line” aims to distill the lessons of the past year for Ukraine and its backers. According to Simon Schlegel, the group’s senior Ukraine analyst, if Ukraine and its partners take these lessons into account, Russia’s aggression is “likely to fail” — but applying them will be anything but easy. Schlegel joined The Naked Pravda to discuss Crisis Group’s recommendations for Kyiv and its supporters and the stakes for the wider region if Ukraine fails to hold the line against Russia. Timestamps for this episode: (1:33) Stakes for Ukraine and Europe (6:41) Western military aid: Incrementalism and its impact (9:47) European allies: Preparedness and challenges (12:25) Advanced weapons systems: Training and deployment issues (16:59) Planning for contingencies: Ukraine’s efforts and limitations (20:34) Negotiation prospects (24:54) Putin’s mixed signals: Peace talks and nuclear threatsКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

For the past two months, millions of Kazakhstanis have been glued to their screens, witnessing a landmark moment in the nation’s history: a murder trial live-streamed on YouTube. This was the trial of Kuandyk Bishimbayev, Kazakhstan’s former economic minister, who was convicted of torturing and killing his wife, Saltanat Nukenova, on November 9, 2023. The brutal CCTV footage of the incident went viral, not just within Kazakhstan but internationally as well. This trial not only highlighted Saltanat Nukenova’s tragic case but also shined a glaring spotlight on Kazakhstan’s chronic issues with domestic violence. To learn more about the case and its wider significance, Meduza intern Ekaterina Rahr-Bohr and Meduza senior news editor Sam Breazeale spoke to Century College political scientist Dr. Colleen Wood, human rights activist and NeMolchiKZ founder Dinara Smailova, and The Village Kazakhstan editor-in-chief Aleksandra Akanaeva. Timestamps for this episode: (6:33) The role of social media and public sentiment (9:51) The impact of “Saltanat’s law” (16:41) Broader issues of domestic violence in Kazakhstan (26:00) The role of NGOs and activists (28:55) Dinara Smailova’s personal stories (36:34) The need for systemic changesКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

Historically, Ukraine has been home to people of a variety of faiths and religious denominations, and it’s been exceptionally “open to receiving a wide spectrum of religious communities” in the years since the collapse of the U.S.S.R, according to expert Catherine Wanner. This laissez-faire approach to religion stands in stark contrast to Russian state policy, which claims to embrace religious pluralism while systematically repressing religious liberty. In Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, experts have documented at least 76 incidents of religious persecution since the full-scale war began in February 2022, including forced conversion, abduction, and murder. This persecution, which some experts say may constitute a “systematic” campaign, has affected Ukrainians of a number of faiths, including Orthodox Christians, Catholics, and Muslims. But members of one group have been especially likely to face repressions: Protestants, despite making up between two and four percent of Ukraine’s population, were the victims of 34 percent of cases of religious persecution, as writer Peter Pomerantsev noted in his article “Russia’s War Against Evangelicals,” published in Time last month. This includes evangelical Baptists, who were the most likely denomination to face persecution after Ukrainian Orthodox believers. Russia’s disproportionate targeting of evangelical Christians in Ukraine is no coincidence. One Ukrainian pastor quoted in Pomerantsev’s article summed up the occupation authorities’ mindset like this: “You are the American faith, the Americans are our enemies, [and] the enemies must be destroyed.” To learn more about Russia’s violent campaign against Ukrainian evangelicals and one organization’s efforts to raise awareness about it in the United States, Meduza senior news editor Sam Breazeale spoke to Steven Moore and Anna Shvetsova from the humanitarian aid organization the Ukraine Freedom Project, and Catherine Wanner, a professor of history and religious studies at Penn State University who studies religious life in Ukraine. Timestamps for this episode: (2:30) Exploring Ukraine’s religious landscape since 1991 (9:31) The persecution of Protestants in occupied Ukraine (26:14) The Role of the Russian Orthodox Church in the conflict (27:24) Navigating political disinformation and support for Ukraine in the U.S.Как поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

It’s strange days recently at Russia’s Defense Ministry. Amid the replacement of the agency’s head, police have brought large-scale bribery charges against at least two senior officials in the Defense Ministry, raising questions about the state of corruption in Russia’s military and the Kremlin’s approach to the phenomenon in wartime.  Also earlier this month, the American Political Science Review published relevant new research by political scientist David Szakonyi, an assistant professor at George Washington University and a co-founder of the Anti-Corruption Data Collective. In the article, titled “Corruption and Co-Optation in Autocracy: Evidence from Russia,” Dr. Szakonyi explores if corrupt State Duma deputies “govern differently” and tries to establish what the governing costs of such corruption might be. The methodology he uses will be familiar to The Naked Pravda’s listeners who know the techniques of anti-corruption activists like the researchers at Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation. Dr. Szakonyi joins this week’s podcast to discuss his findings in the context of a major “anti-corruption moment” for Russia’s Armed Forces. Timestamps for this episode: (3:26) Is this a story about corrupt politicians writ large or specifically in authoritarian states? (4:55) Explaining the paper’s methodology (13:09) The demographics of State Duma corruption (14:21) How the Kremlin co-opts corrupt officials and even welcomes them into politics (17:35) The State Duma as a “rubber stamp” legislature (19:53) “High politics” and “low politics” (21:32) The role of Russia’s security services (23:34) Exhaustion with anti-corruption revelationsКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

The leadup to voting this November will renew fears in the United States about Russian malign influence. That means more paranoia from politicians, more alarming op-eds and white papers from the institutes created and funded to draw attention to foreign disinformation, and more mutual suspicions among ordinary people on social media, where journalists and pundits often draw their anecdotal conclusions about popular opinion. This week, for a skeptical view of the foreign disinformation threat in America, The Naked Pravda welcomes Gavin Wilde, an adjunct faculty member at the Alperovitch Institute, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and a former director for Russia, Baltic, and Caucasus Affairs at the U.S. National Security Council. Together with Olga Belogolova, Lee Foster, and Thomas Rid, Wilde recently coauthored “Don’t Hype the Disinformation Threat: Downplaying the Risk Helps Foreign Propagandists — but So Does Exaggerating It” in Foreign Affairs. About a month earlier, he also wrote an article in the Texas National Security Review, titled “From Panic to Policy: The Limits of Foreign Propaganda and the Foundations of an Effective Response.” In this week’s episode, Wilde talked about both of these essays. Timestamps for this episode: (3:51) Talking to those who believe that foreign disinformation threatens to undo U.S. democracy (7:32) The profit incentives behind counter-disinformation work (10:43) Shifting geopolitical adversaries in counter-disinformation work (13:26) Cognitive information threats (16:56) Deconversion from the ‘Period of Panic’ (20:12) Hard-science methodologies and ontologies (22:49) When does downplaying foreign disinformation become dangerous? (25:23) The challenges of U.S. partisan subjectivityКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

Over the past few weeks, many in the think-tank community have argued about the negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv in the first two months of the full-scale invasion, following an article published on April 16 in Foreign Affairs, titled “The Talks That Could Have Ended the War in Ukraine: A Hidden History of Diplomacy That Came Up Short — but Holds Lessons for Future Negotiations,” by Samuel Charap, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, and Sergey Radchenko, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Europe. In their article, Charap and Radchenko acknowledge that today’s prospects for negotiations “appear dim and relations between the parties are nearly nonexistent,” but they argue that the “mutual willingness” of both Putin and Zelensky in March and April 2022 “to consider far-reaching concessions to end the war” suggest that these two leaders “might well surprise everyone again in the future.” Charap and Radchenko joined The Naked Pravda to talk about this largely forgotten diplomacy, as well as the reactions to their research and what it might reveal in the years ahead. Timestamps for this episode: (2:27) Summary of the Foreign Affairs article (4:46) Entertaining the idea that Russia negotiated in good faith (7:41) If Putin was open to concessions during early setbacks, could the West hope for leverage again? (12:51) Criticism from Poland’s think-tank community (15:13) Lessons and recommendations for tomorrow’s parallel-track diplomacy? (20:40) The biggest surprises in this research (26:46) The shape of a possible peace to comeКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

According to a new investigation from Novaya Gazeta Europe, Chechnya Governor Ramzan Kadyrov was diagnosed with pancreatic necrosis in 2019 and isn’t long for this world. Since then, he’s supposedly undergone “regular procedures,” including surgeries, at an elite hospital in Moscow. A bout of COVID-19 in 2020 reportedly further degraded his health, kicking off another round of sudden weight loss. His kidneys reportedly started to fail and fluid built up in his lungs, making it difficult for him to speak and walk. After Novaya released the first part of this investigation, Kadyrov’s Telegram channel shared its first video in five days, posting footage of Kadyrov meeting with his cabinet to discuss the war in Ukraine. Kadyrov’s speech is slurred and he barely moves. He doesn’t look good. He looks like the title character in Weekend at Bernie’s.  Novaya Gazeta has released two more installments in this story since that first report, and a fourth article is due out soon. On this week’s episode of The Naked Pravda, Meduza spoke to journalist Kirill Martynov, the editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta Europe, to dig into these revelations and learn more about the predicament of Russia’s second-worst autocrat. Timestamps for this episode: (5:02) Why is Ramzan Kadyrov so hard to replace as head of Chechnya? (10:31) What’s so special about Major General Apti Alaudinov, the commander of the “Akhmat” Chechen Volunteer Special Forces Association? (15:18) Protecting Kadyrov’s sons by putting them in the limelight (20:01) Novaya Gazeta Europe’s sources for this investigationКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

It’s no secret that the economies of Central Asian countries like Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan rely heavily on labor migration to stay afloat. In 2022, according to the International Organization for Migration, remittances from Russia accounted for just over half of Tajikistan’s GDP, and made up more than 20 percent of the GDPs of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Many of the workers sending these remittances are their families’ sole breadwinner — and given the lack of employment opportunities at home, working in Russia is often their best option, even if means dealing with a maze of bureaucracy and relentless discrimination.  The aftermath of last month’s terrorist attack in Moscow has brought the xenophobia that Central Asian migrants face in Russia back into the spotlight, with media outlets reporting on a surge in blatant discrimination and, in some cases, targeted violence. Meanwhile, the Russian authorities have launched a renewed crackdown on migrant workers. This is despite the fact that Russia, with its shrinking population and labor shortage made worse by the war, needs migrants to keep its economy functioning. To learn about Russia’s migration policy under Vladimir Putin and how the xenophobic backlash to last month’s attack has affected ethnic and religious minorities, The Naked Pravda spoke to Moscow Times special correspondent Leyla Latypova; Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center fellow Temur Umarov; and political scientist Caress Schenk, an associate professor at Nazarbayev University. And be sure to check out Temur Umarov’s previous appearance on The Naked Pravda: How Russia pressures Central Asian migrants into military service. Timestamps for this episode: (2:35) Xenophobia in the wake of the Crocus City Hall attack (16:55) Russia’s dependence on migrant labor (27:35) How Russia uses migration policy for political aims (31:25) The migration-extremism fallacy (39:13) The long-term effects of Russia’s current migration crackdownКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

Look at almost any recent major news story from Russia, and you’ll find the Federal Security Service, better known as the FSB. Having failed to prevent the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack in Moscow last month, the agency has played a major role in arresting and apparently torturing the suspected perpetrators. It was FSB agents who arrested Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on espionage charges just over a year ago. And the FSB has been heavily involved in enforcing Russia’s crackdowns on dissent and LGBTQ+ rights. At the same time, the FSB is inextricably linked to Moscow’s war against Ukraine. After years of carrying out subversive activities there, it provided Putin with key (though apparently misleading) intel that led him to launch his full-scale invasion in 2022. Since then, its agents have facilitated the deportation of Ukrainian children, tortured an untold number of Ukrainian civilians in so-called “torture chambers,” and tried to plant former ISIS members in Ukrainian battalions. And let’s not forget that Putin himself was shaped by his career in the FSB’s predecessor agency, the Soviet-era KGB. Putin’s rise to power was defined by his image as a strong man who could ensure security and stability. Since assuming the presidency, he’s given himself direct authority over the FSB and steadily expanded its ability to surveil and repress Russian citizens. To learn about the Russian FSB’s evolution over the last three decades, its operations in Russia and beyond, and its possible future after Putin, Meduza in English senior news editor Sam Breazeale spoke to Dr. Kevin Riehle, an expert in foreign intelligence services and the author of The Russian FSB: A Concise History of the Federal Security Service. Timestamps for this episode: (3:13) Decoding the FSB: Structure, mission, and operations (5:58) The evolution of Russian national security: From KGB to FSB (14:36) Corruption and ideology: The FSB’s internal struggle (23:31) The FSB’s foreign reach and domestic repression (38:49) The agency’s post-Putin futureКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

It’s been seven weeks since a local branch of Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service published a brief news post about the death of opposition leader Alexey Navalny. “He went for a walk, felt sick, collapsed unconscious, and couldn’t be resuscitated.” Russian officials would later insist that Navalny died of natural causes — his mother was told that he succumbed to “sudden death syndrome.” In mid-March, while celebrating his claim on a fifth presidential term, Vladimir Putin finally uttered Navalny’s name in public but only to dance on his grave, claiming that he was ready to trade him off to the West, provided he never came back. “But unfortunately, what happened happened. What can you do? That’s life,” said Putin. This week, The Naked Pravda looks back at Navalny’s career in politics and ahead to the political future of his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, by speaking to two of the people most responsible for educating the English-speaking world about his work: filmmaker Daniel Roher, whose documentary on Navalny won an Oscar last year, and journalist Julia Ioffe, who was one of the first Western reporters to write about Navalny and who’s tracked him and his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, in numerous articles for more a decade, profiling them in stories for The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. Ioffe is also the author of the forthcoming book “Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy,” now available for preorder. Timestamps for this episode: (1:55) How Daniel Roher started filming Team Navalny (10:15) Roher’s goals when making the “Navalny” documentary (11:51) Choosing a literary trope for the Navalny story (15:02) Did anyone try to talk Navalny out of returning to Moscow? (19:39) Filming Navalny’s nationalism (22:37) Rethinking the film after Navalny’s death (24:21) Julia Ioffe remembers meeting Alexey Navalny for the first time (29:47) Ioffe reviews Navalny’s views on nationalism and Ukraine (36:15) Looking ahead to Yulia Navalnaya and back at past revolutionary womenКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

It’s been a little more than a week since a group of armed men walked into a concert hall just outside Moscow and gunned down dozens of defenseless people. A branch of the Islamic State active in South-Central Asia known as Islamic State – Khorasan, or IS-K, claimed responsibility for the Moscow attack in a statement through an affiliated media channel. That same channel later published body-cam footage recorded by the terrorists in the concert hall during the attack. Western intelligence officials say they have corroborated IS-K’s responsibility claim. Though IS-K says the concert hall killings are its work, Russian national security officials — including President Putin in several public statements — have argued that Moscow’s enemies in Kyiv, Washington, and London are the attack’s true masterminds.  The Russian authorities have arrested four Tajikistani nationals they say acted as the gunmen, and several more people are now in custody on suspicion of aiding and abetting the killings. Before the four main suspects were arraigned in court, videos circulated online showing Russian security forces torturing them after their capture. Despite this treatment then and presumably in the days since, so far, only two of the four defendants have pleaded guilty to all charges. To learn more about the perpetrators of this heinous attack, the fluid geopolitics that drives such terrorism, and the road ahead for Russia as the Kremlin tries to utilize the tragedy for its own aims, Meduza spoke to Dr. Jean-François Ratelle, an adjunct professor at the University of Ottawa, and Dr. Domitilla Sagramoso, a senior lecturer in conflict and security in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. Timestamps for this episode: (5:49) The Role of Tajikistan and Central Asia in the Attack (28:07) Russia’s Response and the Blame Game (29:30) Debunking Narratives: The Truth Behind the Accusations (44:09) The Impact of the Ukraine Conflict on Russia’s Security LandscapeКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

For decades, NATO’s European members have depended on the U.S. to bolster their defense. Perhaps nowhere is this reliance more acutely felt than in the Baltic countries, which joined the alliance 20 years ago this month, and experienced occupation in living memory. With Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine entering its third year and the future of U.S. military support for Kyiv in doubt, European officials and military analysts have begun sounding the alarm about the risk of Moscow starting a wider war. Meanwhile, the presumptive Republican nominee for the U.S. presidency, Donald Trump, threatens to renege on Washington’s NATO commitments, stoking fears of the alliance being undermined from within. Is a Russian invasion of NATO territory really plausible? If so, how are the Baltic states working to deter it? And in a worst-case scenario, how prepared is the West to fight back? For answers to these and other questions, Meduza spoke to Baltic defense expert Lukas Milevski, political scientist Henrik Larsen, and retired Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, the former commander of the U.S. Army in Europe. Articles mentioned: The Baltic Defense Line by Lukas Milevski and Europe’s Contribution to NATO’s New Defence by Henrik Larsen. Timestamps for this episode: (1:30) Street interviews in Latvia (9:09) Exploring the Baltic defensive line (37:19) NATO’s readiness and the European context (1:01:33) Political will and public opinionКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

U.S. President Joe Biden took less than two minutes to bring up Russia in his 2024 State of the Union address. “If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you, he will not,” Biden said, prompting a standing ovation. “But Ukraine can stop Putin if we stand with Ukraine and provide the weapons it needs to defend itself.”  An unwavering commitment to supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russia has been at the center of the Biden administration’s foreign policy for more than two years now. But Washington’s relations with Moscow and Kyiv looked very different when Biden took office back in 2021. For the inside scoop on team Biden’s Russia and Ukraine policy, and how Moscow’s 2022 invasion turned all their plans upside down, Meduza turns to Politico national security reporter Alex Ward, the author of The Internationalists: The Fight To Restore American Foreign Policy After Trump.  Timestamps for this episode: (5:07) How did team Biden originally plan to handle relations with Moscow and Kyiv? (11:40) How did the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal influence the response to Russia’s looming Ukraine invasion? (15:46) Why did U.S. intelligence get Russia’s invasion plan right but its military capabilities wrong?  (23:40) What did the first two years tell us about team Biden’s approach to foreign policy? (26:52) What will the Biden administration be remembered for?Как поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

Last month, there was a sudden panic in the United States when House Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner issued a statement warning of a “serious national security threat” and demanded that President Biden declassify related information. The American media subsequently reported that Turner was referring to alleged Russian plans to deploy nuclear weapons in space, though U.S. National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby later clarified that the matter concerns anti-satellite weapons that cannot be used to attack people or to strike targets on Earth. He explained that Russia’s development of the technology is concerning but does not pose an immediate threat. To make sense of these reports and to respond to the panic that this situation provokes, The Naked Pravda welcomes back nuclear arms expert Pavel Podvig, a senior researcher at the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research. Timestamps for this episode: (3:20) The (im)practicality of nuclear weapons in space (5:31) Imagining a nuclear blast in orbit (9:59) The feasibility of nuclear-powered space weapons (28:02) The 1967 Outer Space Treaty and its modern-day implications (31:26) Common misconceptions about space in moviesКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

To mark the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Moscow’s ongoing campaign to seize more territory, Meduza sat down with the author of The War Came To Us: Life and Death in Ukraine, Christopher Miller, the Ukraine correspondent for The Financial Times and a foremost journalist covering the country who was there on the ground when the first Russian missiles struck and troops stormed over the border. In the book, Miller recounts how his life became intertwined with Ukraine and then Russia’s brutal invasion. Find The War Came To Us at Amazon and wherever books are sold. Timestamps for this episode: (3:03) How did you decide which stories to include in the book? (11:18) When did you realize you were witnessing world history, and what did it feel like? (16:53) What kind of people have been on the ground working as journalists during the most pivotal moments of Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution and the fight against the Russian invasion? (23:08) How has the war changed the nature and critical spirit of journalism in Ukraine? (32:01) What would you say to potential international readers experiencing war fatigue who hesitate to pick up a book about Ukraine?Как поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

Meduza reports on opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s death in prison and speaks to experts about his legacy and the political science behind autocrats eliminating dissident threats. This week’s guests are Meduza journalists Evgeny Feldman and Maxim Trudolyubov and scholars Graeme Robertson and Erica Frantz. Timestamps for this episode: (0:43) Photographer Evgeny Feldman reflects on what Navalny meant to him (4:02) The circumstances surrounding Navalny’s death (6:33) Maxim Trudolyubov discusses Navalny’s impact on Russian politics (14:32) Graeme Robertson puts Navalny’s death in the context of the Putin regime’s crackdown on liberalism (18:21) Erica Frantz explains why political prisoners can still threaten autocrats from behind barsКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

After a year and a half of negotiations, Yandex founder Arkady Volozh and the company’s foreign shareholders have reached a deal to part ways with Yandex’s Russian assets. The Russian IT giant’s Netherlands-based parent company announced Monday, February 5, that it will sell a large portion of its operations to a consortium of Russian investors before rebranding and continuing to develop its remaining international properties. Yandex’s restructuring has been underway for more than a year. Meduza has reported together with the news outlet The Bell on the backroom negotiations that have been underway to ensure that Yandex’s core Russian assets pass to Kremlin-approved hands, and now we’re finally there. The Naked Pravda spoke to Meduza journalist Svetlana Reiter about the ins and outs of the deal. Timestamps for this episode: (2:16) Review of recent news(5:38) Meet Yandex’s new owners(10:18) The future of Yandex(18:56) Yandex InternationalКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

The Russian government has a message for its citizens living in exile: nowhere is safe for you. For years, it’s made this threat clear by subjecting its critics abroad to intimidation, forced repatriation, and assassination attempts. And just as the Kremlin has taken increasingly draconian measures to silence dissent at home since launching the full-scale war in Ukraine, it’s also devised new tactics for targeting activists, journalists, and politicians far beyond its borders. For insight into how Moscow’s approach to transnational repression has changed over the last two years, The Naked Pravda turned to journalist and activist Dan Storyev, who serves as the managing editor of OVD-Info’s English-language edition, and Yana Gorokhovskaia, the research director for strategy and design at Freedom House. *** No country can be free without independent media. In January 2023, the Russian authorities outlawed Meduza, banning our work in the country our colleagues call home. Just supporting Meduza carries the risk of criminal prosecution for Russian nationals, which is why we’re turning to our international audience for help. Your assistance makes it possible for thousands of people in Russia to read Meduza and stay informed. Consider a small but recurring contribution to provide the most effective support. Please donate here. *** Timestamps for this episode (10:22) Case study: An abduction in Kyrgyzstan (16:40) The goal of Moscow’s repressions abroad (20:10) How countries unwittingly “work hand-in-hand with the Kremlin” (23:41) How the Kremlin’s tactics have changed since 2022 (28:29) How Russia takes advantage of the Interpol system to repatriate citizens (34:18) Transnational repression by BelarusКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

Boris Nadezhdin’s surname has its root in the Russian word for “hope,” and he’s inspired just that in tens of thousands of voters as the politician with an antiwar message who’s come the furthest in the country’s byzantine bureaucracy for presidential candidacy. Nadezhdin’s campaign says it’s collected roughly 200,000 signatures, which is twice what it technically needs for the Central Election Commission to add his name to the ballot in March. While the commission’s approval remains unlikely, the Nadezhdin campaign has been a major news event for antiwar Russians, especially in the ever-growing diaspora, where thousands of people have lined up in cities across Europe and the Caucasus to offer their signatures. Nadezhdhin’s allies have no illusions about his prospects, but showing their support for an antiwar challenger to Vladimir Putin has quickly become the opposition’s first visible civic movement in some time. To understand how this happened, who Nadezhdin is as a politician, and how opposition politics has worked throughout Russia’s Putin era, The Naked Pravda welcomes back Dr. Маrgarita Zavadskaya, a senior research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. *** No country can be free without independent media. In January 2023, the Russian authorities outlawed Meduza, banning our work in the country our colleagues call home. Just supporting Meduza carries the risk of criminal prosecution for Russian nationals, which is why we’re turning to our international audience for help. Your assistance makes it possible for thousands of people in Russia to read Meduza and stay informed. Consider a small but recurring contribution to provide the most effective support. Please donate here. *** Timestamps for this episode: (5:43) Nadezhdin’s Political Career and Ideology (9:58) Understanding the Nature of Russian Liberal Politicians (19:26) The Role of Elections in Authoritarian Regimes (26:04) A Hopeful Note: The Power of Collective ActionКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

The U.S. government is reportedly becoming more “assertive” about backing the confiscation of roughly $300 billion in frozen Russian sovereign assets to provide an alternative funding stream for Kyiv. The news comes amid faltering efforts in Europe and Washington to approve the budgetary allocations needed to sustain aid for Ukraine, which presumably makes it even more attractive to force Russia to foot the bill. Kyiv’s most ardent supporters in the West say the seizure of the immobilized Russian state assets is long overdue. In fact, that the seizure hasn’t happened already is both alarming and confounding to many people. To understand what’s keeping the West from grabbing this Russian money and what it will take for the confiscation to go ahead, Meduza spoke to journalist, economist, and political analyst Alexander Kolyandr and welcomed back Maximilian Hess, the founder of Enmetena Advisory and a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and the author of “Economic War: Ukraine and the Global Conflict Between Russia and the West.” Timestamps for this episode (4:33) What and where are these frozen Russian assets?(8:46) Confiscation’s potential impact on the world economy(12:41) Implications for Western countries(14:55) Understanding the resistance to confiscation(36:09) Barriers to asset confiscationКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

The Naked Pravda explores how Russia’s mobilization drive is pressuring society and capturing men for the invasion of Ukraine. This episode features Project “Get Lost” creator and director Grigory Sverdlin, whose human rights group helps Russians evade the draft and leave Russia (among other things). For a geopolitical perspective on Moscow’s mobilization, Meduza spoke to Dr. Stefan Wolff, a professor of international security at the University of Birmingham in England and the cofounder of Navigating the Vortex, a newsletter on the geopolitical and geoeconomic context of events and developments around the world. Timestamps for this episode (3:27) Project “Get Lost” (5:10) The challenges of avoiding mobilization (9:15) Consequences for ignoring a military summons (12:24) Military recruiter tactics (15:46) Mobilization’s social and demographic impact in Russia (29:35) The future of mobilization in Russia and UkraineКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

In a special holiday departure from The Naked Pravda’s usual coverage of Russian politics and news, Meduza in English’s social media editor Ned Garvey and senior news editor Sam Breazeale chat about their personal experiences living in Russia, what they found surprising there as Americans, and what still stands out today in their memories of the country. Timestamps for this episode: (8:52) Encounters with seedy characters and police(12:58) Travels around the country(15:01) Surprises in daily life(18:00) Holiday memories(23:06) Friendships in Russia(26:45) Stereotypes: fact vs. fictionКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

Answering the question “Where are you from?” has never come easily for Lena Wolf. As the descendents of 18th-century German settlers living in Soviet Kazakhstan, she and her family “didn’t exist as a group” in the history books or on TV. As a result, many of their neighbors equated them with the soldiers from Nazi Germany who had invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 — even though their ancestors had arrived in the Russian Empire more than a hundred years earlier. To complicate matters further, the lives of Lena’s parents and grandparents were shaped by the brutal repressions of the Stalin regime — a history that her father still believes is “better forgotten.” When Lena’s family finally moved to Germany on the eve of the Soviet Union’s collapse, her parents were eager to assimilate into German society and leave the past behind. But Lena quickly discovered that they were “not like other Germans.” After years of feeling like a person without a history, Lena finally decided to embrace her identity as a “Kazakh German” and record her family’s story in a form that would make it accessible to a new generation. And so, with the help of crowdfunding and a team of artists, she’s now working on a two-part graphic novel. The Wolf family’s story was the subject of a recent feature published by Meduza’s weekly long-reads newsletter, The Beet. To learn what it was like to delve into her family’s difficult past and find new meaning in her parents’ and grandparents’ memories, The Beet editor Eilish Hart and Meduza in English senior news editor Sam Breazeale interviewed Lena Wolf for The Naked Pravda. Timestamps for this episode: (2:45) Who is Lena Wolf?(4:23) The history of German settlers in the Russian Empire (6:40) How Joseph Stalin’s deportations shaped the Wolf family(11:54) Lena’s childhood and the making of her graphic novel(22:10) Finding community and connection through difficult history (34:40) How Lena’s father inspired the title of her book A note from Meduza’s founders: We love making wishes for the New Year and are not ashamed to dream big. At Meduza, we believe the impossible is possible. Why do we keep at this, despite all the signs that the world is heading into an abyss? Well, for starters, Meduza keeps going because we’ve got you. As the year comes to a close, we’ve decided to share our wishlist for 2024 — an inventory of our wildest hopes and dreams. You can take a look here.Как поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

There’s a paradox in studying Russia today: the country has become “more prominent in the news agenda and simultaneously less transparent for observers,” thanks to the invasion of Ukraine, Western sanctions, isolation, and the intensification of propaganda. This week’s show is devoted to studying Russia in conditions of growing non-transparency, which is the subject of a paper published in October 2023 by scholars Dmitry Kokorin, Dmitriy Gorskiy, Elizaveta Zubiuk, and Tetiana Kotelnikova. For more about this work, The Naked Pravda spoke to Dmitriy Gorskiy, a researcher at the Ideas for Russia Program, a faculty member at Charles University, and a scholar at the Prague-based Institute for International Relations. Gorskiy and his coauthors write about “distortions” of knowledge production in Russia and knowledge production about Russia, and they explore how experts adapt to less reliable data and disruptions in international cooperation, among other challenges. Timestamps for this episode: (5:30) The importance of studying Russia(6:57) Lessons from the Soviet Union(8:13) Distortions of knowledge production(13:28) Government data and reliability(15:40) Triangulation and leaked data(16:25) A media diet for Russia scholars(26:13) Rigorous social scientific workКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

On November 30, the Russian Supreme Court outlawed an organization that doesn’t exist: the so-called “international LGBT movement.” The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by the Justice Ministry, which claimed the “international LGBT movement’s” activities showed signs of “extremism” and incited “social and religious discord.” The new ban won’t officially come into force until January 10, 2024, but its chilling effect was almost immediate. The day after the ruling, Russian police reportedly raided multiple nightclubs that were hosting events for LGBTQ+ people. One of St. Petersburg’s oldest gay clubs has announced its closure, as has at least one LGBTQ+ rights organization. The mapping service 2GIS instructed employees to create a “registry” of LGBTQ+ establishments. According to the Russian authorities, this human rights crackdown is necessary to protect Russia’s “traditional values” from outside threats. But the truth is that this type of conservative nationalism didn’t originate in Russia at all. To learn where it actually came from and what it means for LGBTQ+ life in Russia, Meduza senior news editor Sam Breazeale spoke to historian Dr. Dan Healey, sociologist Dr. Alexander Kondakov, and political scientist Dr. Leandra Bias. Timestamps for this episode: 3:48 Dan Healey on LGBTQ+ rights in Russia in the 1990s and 2000s 9:28 Anti-gay repressions under Joseph Stalin 13:44 Alexander Kondakov on Putin’s “ideology” 25:05 The “innovation” of Russia’s “LGBT movement” ban 31:11 The future of LGBTQ+ rights organizations in Russia 33:55 Leandra Bias on the foreign roots of Russia’s “traditional values” 38:08 How Russia uses homophobia and transphobia to justify warКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

On November 8, 2023, the E.U. recommended that Georgia be granted candidate status, which it applied for in March 2022, just after Russia started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The E.U. had previously only given Georgia what’s called a European Perspective, recognizing it as a potential candidate but stopping short of granting it candidate status, as it had for Ukraine and Moldova in June 2022. In recent years, the E.U. had criticized the ruling Georgian Dream party for its increasing restrictions on media freedom, crackdown on protests, and for developing closer relations with Moscow. Improving relations with Russia has been received negatively in Georgia not only because of Russia actively waging a war in Ukraine, but also due to the 2008 war over Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Georgia’s two breakaway regions, which Moscow has since occupied. While the conflict is often described as “frozen,” people living along the so-called “separation line” between the breakaway regions and Georgia proper continue to experience the war’s lasting effects. At times, they have been deadly — in early November 2023, a Georgian man was killed by the Russian military when he was visiting a church located on the separation line. For insight on what life is like for people living along this line and the prospects for peace, Meduza spoke to Olesya Vartanyan, Crisis Group’s Senior Analyst for the South Caucasus region. Meduza then turned to Mariam Nikuradze, the co-founder and executive director of OC Media, to learn more about the recent Foreign Agents Draft Bill, the Georgian government’s crackdown on protests, and the challenges journalists in Georgia continue to face.Как поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

This week’s show spotlights the experiences of two comedians, “Dan the Stranger” (Denis Chuzhoi) and Sasha Dolgopolov, who emigrated last year after their opposition to the invasion of Ukraine made it unsafe to continue their careers in Russia. Despite the challenges of creating and performing comedy in a foreign language, they continue to ply their craft in Europe. Dan and Sasha told Meduza about the incidents and brushes with the police that drove them to leave their homeland, particularly in the aftermath of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The conversation touches on the adjustments needed to perform in English, the similarities of the comedy scene in Europe and the United States, and their commitment to expressing their individual experiences even when playing with Western stereotypes about Russians. Resources to follow these two performers: Dan the Stranger: website / upcoming shows in Munchen, Stuttgart, Barcelona, Madrid, Lisboa, Brussels, Luxembourg, Amsterdam, and Berlin Sasha Dolgopolov: website / upcoming show in Riga, Latvia, on November 24, 2023 Timestamps for this episode: 02:46 The Decision to Leave Russia 03:46 Controversy Surrounding Religious Jokes 06:54 The Impact of the War on Comedians' Freedom of Expression 07:19 The Journey to Berlin and the Start of a New Life 11:42 Challenges Performing Comedy in a Foreign Language 20:02 The Process of Building a Comedy Routine in English 33:26 The Influence of Russian Stereotypes on ComedyКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

This week, Meduza spoke to Dr. Sergey Radchenko about his next book, To Run the World: The Kremlin’s Cold War Bid for Global Power (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming in 2024), which explores the era’s diplomatic history, focusing on how narratives of legitimacy offer crucial insights for interpreting Moscow’s motivations and foreign policy. The conversation covers telling anecdotes about prominent world leaders like Richard Nixon, Nikita Khrushchev, and Leonid Brezhnev, their psychology, and how individual quirks shaped world events. Dr. Radchenko explains how resentment and the need for legitimacy and recognition drove Soviet decision-making in ways that past literature about communist ideology and imperialism fails to capture. Timestamps for this episode: 06:22 The Role of recognition and legitimacy in Soviet foreign policy 08:56 Raskolnikov on the global stage 12:24 The strange pursuit of greatness and global leadership 14:52 Soviet ambitions and Soviet means 17:02 Moscow's persistent resentment 21:34 The Berlin Crisis 28:30 The paradox of the USSR as a great power 31:08 China's role in Soviet self-perceptions 34:13 Autocrats and peace promotionКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

On the evening of October 29, a crowd of rioters stormed the Makhachkala airport and then flooded the tarmac after a flight landed from Tel Aviv. The angry men had assembled amid reports circulating on the social network Telegram about Israeli refugees allegedly coming to resettle in Dagestan, supposedly with a diabolical plan to oust the native population. Rioters waved Palestinian flags and chanted anti-Semitic slogans.  A day before the airport violence, locals in the city of Khasavyurt assembled outside a hotel amid rumors circulating online that it was accommodating Israeli refugees. When hotel guests refused to come to their windows to prove (somehow) that they weren’t Jews, people in the crowd started throwing rocks at the building. The mob didn’t disperse until the police showed up and allowed several demonstrators to enter the hotel to verify that it wasn’t “full of Jews.” That same day, unpermitted anti-Israeli rallies took place in Makhachkala’s Lenin Square and in Cherkessk, the capital of Karachay-Cherkessia. Demonstrators demanded that “Israeli refugees not be allowed to enter the region” and that ethnic Jews be expelled from the area. The following morning, on October 29, unknown individuals set fire to a Jewish cultural center in Nalchik that was still under construction. The assailants threw burning tires onto the property and wrote the phrase “death to Jews” on the wall. In the days after the Makhachkala Airport riot, Moscow settled on the explanation that foreign intelligence operatives — in Ukraine, orchestrated by the Americans, of course — are to blame for manipulating Dagestanis’ understandable outrage about Israel’s attack on civilians in Gaza. For a better grasp of what has fomented anti-Semitism in the North Caucasus, The Naked Pravda spoke to political and security analyst Harold Chambers and RFE/RL Caucasus Realities senior editor Zakir Magomedov. Timestamps for this episode: 02:51 Anti-Semitic Incidents in Russia's North Caucasus03:46 Putin’s Response04:34 The Supposed Role of ‘Foreign Intelligence’07:59 Incitements on Telegram11:20 The Israel-Palestine Conflict19:35 Protests Against Putin's Mobilization Orders23:24 The Aftermath: Arrests and Support from AthletesКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

A new investigation from journalists at iStories and researchers at the Conflict Intelligence Team accuses the Russian military of using so-called “torture pits” against unruly, often drunk soldiers. Journalists and researchers think they found two sites, one outside Volgograd and the other outside Orenburg. iStories collected testimony from soldiers at two training grounds in these areas and identified satellite images that appear to show the pits those soldiers described. iStories spoke to a soldier who trained at this facility this summer (the journalists gave him the pseudonym “Viktor”), who described a chaotic breakdown in military discipline. According to Viktor, roughly 80 percent of the soldiers undergoing training were prisoner recruits who were often drunk or high. In his comments to journalists, Viktor said repeatedly that these soldiers were only there for the money, signaling potentially severe problems with morale in Russia’s armed forces. The Naked Pravda spoke to the author of the iStories report, Sonya Savina, to learn more about the story. Timestamps for this episode: (0:04) The plight of billionaire Mikhail Fridman (1:53) Soviet basketball history (2:22) Hamas and Iran send delegations to Moscow (4:22) The hidden crimes and growing needs of Russia’s combat veterans (6:16) News from Russia’s neighbors (8:33) This week’s main story: The Russian military’s torture pits (16:00) Halloween epilogue: A tale of forbidden sweetsКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

If major events and cultural shifts are what elevate music, now is an excellent time to take stock of what’s happening in Russia, more than 600 days after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the imposition of militarized censorship, and the spread of wartime social norms. To learn about Russia’s contemporary music scene and how the invasion influences popular trends, Meduza spoke to music journalists Denis Boyarinov and Lev Gankin. For an insider’s perspective, The Naked Pravda also sat down with Kirill Ivanov, the leader of the band Самое Большое Простое Число (The Largest Prime Number). Timestamps for this episode: (3:42) Rating the level of freedom for musicians in Russia today (6:48) DDT and rock culture (9:22) Face and rap music (11:51) Censorship (16:14) The Safe Internet League (28:27) Kirill Ivanov, frontman of the band The Largest Prime Number (43:16) Ultra-patriotic musicians (54:07) “Recommended” Z-music listening Как поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

In August, a wave of police raids sent a chill through Russia’s migrant communities. By all appearances, the authorities were trying to track down draft-age men from Central Asia who had recently acquired Russian citizenship but failed to complete their mandatory military registration. Officers in multiple cities handed out military summonses on the spot and dragged migrant workers off to enlistment offices by force. There, they ran the risk of ending up like the hundreds of other Central Asians recruited to fight alongside Russian soldiers and work in occupied regions of Ukraine.  These police raids were at the center of a recent story published by Meduza’s weekly long-reads newsletter, The Beet. For more on Russia’s covert efforts to conscript newly naturalized citizens and migrant workers from Central Asia, The Beet editor Eilish Hart spoke to the story’s author, freelance journalist Sher Khashimov, and researcher Temur Umarov, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin.  Timestamps for this episode: (2:25) What do we know about the recent police raids targeting migrant workers from Central Asia? (6:00) What Russian officials are saying about naturalized citizens (8:54) How do migrant workers view the recent police raids and shifts in official rhetoric? (11:33) Why is Russia such a popular destination for migrant workers from Central Asia, even in wartime? (19:19) Why might acquiring Russian citizenship appeal to migrant workers? (28:36) Are Russia’s recruitment efforts damaging ties with Central Asian countries?Как поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

Have you given much thought to the economic war that rages behind the scenes of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine? You’ve likely read plenty about sanctions. Maybe you know that the likes of McDonald’s and Starbucks have left Russia, and you’ve probably seen some headlines about Europe struggling to break its energy dependence on Russia. But unless you work in this field, it’s easy to underappreciate how crucial the economic war between Russia and the West is to the broader conflict that has destroyed the post-Cold War peace with Moscow. So, for this week’s show, Meduza spoke with Maximilian Hess, the founder of Enmetena Advisory and a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, about his new book tackling how the West uses its clout and privileged position with international markets to deter and penalize the Kremlin for its aggression against Ukraine. The book, published by Hurst, is called “Economic War: Ukraine and the Global Conflict Between Russia and the West,” and you can find it wherever books are sold. Timestamps for this episode: (2:50) How does Putin understand Western advantages so well but still continuously miscalculate? (7:50) Western imperviousness and vulnerabilities (16:10) Balancing U.S. gains and responsibilities with European interests (21:20) How Western sanctions will hit Russia over the long term (25:27) A battle of the wills (33:23) How realistic are hopes that Russia will pay Ukraine reparations someday? (37:06) Securing peace on the ground in Ukraine by winning the economic warКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

Following an “anti-terrorist” operation by the Azerbaijani military in Nagorno-Karabakh, what was a blockade has transformed into an exodus of the region’s Armenian population, raising allegations of ethnic cleansing as tens of thousands of people flee to Armenia. As this tragedy has unfolded, roughly 2,000 Russian peacekeepers have stood by and done virtually nothing. On September 20, a day after Azerbaijani troops forced the unrecognized Republic of Artsakh’s capitulation, thousands of people crowded the Russian peacekeeping base at the now-defunct Stepanakert airport, hoping to catch an evacuation that didn’t really begin for another four days. So many people showed up that a lot of them ended up sleeping in tents or cars. In November 2020, a Moscow-brokered ceasefire agreement gave hope that today’s tragedy might be avoided or at least delayed another five years. To discuss that deal and Russia’s track record when it comes to peacekeeping in the region, The Naked Pravda turned to Olesya Vartanyan, Crisis Group’s senior analyst for the South Caucasus. Timestamps for this episode: (2:52) The parameters of Russia’s peacekeeping mission in Nagorno-Karabakh (5:04) Who actually cares about Nagorno-Karabakh? (8:37) Russia’s reputation as a partner in the region (12:44) Bad blood between Yerevan and Moscow (16:53) When Russian peacekeepers come under fire (23:03) Taking “Russian peacekeeping” seriously (27:52) Who failed in Nagorno-Karabakh?Как поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

Vladimir Putin has made a slew of anti-Semitic comments in the last few months, from saying Ukraine’s President Zelensky is “not Jewish but a disgrace to the Jewish people” to responding to reports of a former advisor moving to Israel by calling him “some sort of Moisha Israelievich.” In one interview with a Russian propagandist, Putin said that Zelensky’s “Western handlers put an ethnic Jew in charge of Ukraine” to mask the country’s “anti-human nature.” One of the main narratives Moscow uses to justify its war, the idea that Ukraine is run by a “Nazi regime,” is undermined by the fact that Ukrainians freely elected a Jewish president, so perhaps it should be no surprise that Putin and his team have tried to square the circle by invoking anti-Semitic tropes. Still, while Russia’s history is full of discrimination and violence against Jewish people, this is the first time in his reign that Putin has made so many public anti-Semitic statements in such quick succession. For insight into anti-Jewish sentiment in today’s Russia, how Soviet state-sponsored anti-Semitism may have influenced Putin’s views of Jewish people, and why Putin is taking this approach at this moment in the war, The Naked Pravda spoke to historian Artem Efimov, the editor-in-chief of Meduza’s Signal newsletter.Как поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

On June 23, 2023, hours before Yevgeny Prigozhin would shock the world by staging a mutiny against the Russian military, Meduza co-founder and CEO Galina Timchenko learned that her iPhone had been infected months earlier with “Pegasus.” The spyware’s Israeli designers market the product as a crimefighting super-tool against “terrorists, criminals, and pedophiles,” but states around the world have abused Pegasus to track critics and political adversaries who sometimes end up arrested or even murdered. Access to Pegasus isn’t cheap: Researchers believe the service costs tens of millions of dollars, meaning that somebody — some government agency out there — paid maybe a million bucks to hijack Timchenko’s smartphone. Why would somebody do that? How would somebody do that? And who could have done it? For answers, The Naked Pravda turned to two experts: Natalia Krapiva, tech-legal counsel for Access Now, a nonprofit organization committed to “defending and extending” the digital civil rights of people worldwide, and John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, an interdisciplinary laboratory at the University of Toronto that investigates digital espionage against civil society. Timestamps for this episode: (3:39) Galina Timchenko’s hacked iPhone is the first confirmed case of a Pegasus infection against a Russian journalist (6:16) NSO Group’s different contract tiers for Pegasus users (9:59) How aware is NSO Group of Pegasus’s rampant misuse? (12:29) Why hasn’t Europe done more to restrict the use of such spyware? (15:50) Russian allies using Pegasus (17:58) E.U. members using Pegasus (21:37) Training required to use Pegasus and the spyware’s technical side (27:38) The forensics needed to detect a Pegasus infection (35:46) Is Pegasus built more to find criminals or members of civil society? (40:10) Imagining a global moratorium on military-grade spyware (43:22) “A German solution” (45:14) Where the West goes from hereКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

This week’s show tackles Russia’s 2023 regional elections, scheduled for Sunday, September 10, though several regions will keep polling stations open all weekend. “Up for grabs” in contests with mostly predetermined outcomes are 26 gubernatorial offices and seats in 20 regional parliaments. There’s also a whole mess of municipal and local races. Occupying forces in four regions of Ukraine are staging votes, too. Foreign Policy Research Institute Eurasia Program Fellow András Tóth-Czifra joined the podcast to explain what’s at stake, how Russian voting has evolved over the years, and why some pockets of competitive politics persist. To learn about the challenges of monitoring Russian elections today and the remaining opportunities for “protest voting,” The Naked Pravda spoke to University of Bonn social scientist Dr. Galina Selivanova. Timestamps for this episode: (2:20) What’s at stake in this weekend’s voting (7:54) Pockets of competition (16:12) “Golos” election monitors (28:51) How election fraud works in Russia (32:35) Apathetic voters and protest potential at the pollsКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

How complicit are ordinary Russians in the invasion of Ukraine? That’s a question at the core of Russia’s War, a book published this May, where author Jade McGlynn explores what she calls “the grievances, lies, and half-truths that pervade the Russian worldview,” arguing that too many people in Russia have “invested too deeply in the Kremlin’s alternative narratives” to see the war in Ukraine as the brutal assault it is. Dr. McGlynn specializes in Russian media, memory, and foreign policy at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. Follow her here on 𝕏 (formerly known as Twitter). You can find Russia’s War on Amazon and wherever books are sold. Timestamps for this episode: (2:13) What’s so special about PIR Center director Vladimir Orlov? (8:03) Russians’ moral culpability in the war (13:30) Zelensky’s role and the war’s heroes and villains (15:43) Analyzing Russian Telegram channels during the war (19:11) Russia’s anti-Kremlin opposition during the war (22:30) Changing Russians’ minds from abroadКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

A new Russian history textbook for 11th graders announced earlier this summer, “The History of Russia, 1945 to the Start of the 21st Century,” has almost 30 pages devoted directly to explaining and especially to justifying the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. The whole textbook is 448 pages: There are 264 pages covering the post-war Soviet period, 48 pages about Russia in the 1990s, and 94 pages about the Putin era. Vladimir Putin’s name appears on about 40 different pages (sometimes more than once), while Stalin and Stalinism show up on nearly 60 pages. The Special Military Operation chapter concludes with this whopper of a paragraph: “But one this is clear: That Russia has always had, has, and will have the valor, dignity, honor, and loyalty to oath of our soldiers and volunteer fighters, doctors, teachers, builders, and aid workers. They are the true, not invented, heroes of our time. They’re around us and among us. They are an example of honor, courage, and faith in the righteousness of our cause. Their names and their daily feats join the thousand-year annals of Russian history with the deeds of millions of their heroic forebearers. It has always been so in the history of our Motherland. And so it will be. Always.” To learn about why this textbook was written, what it says about contemporary events, and how the Putin regime intends to use it, Meduza spoke to three experts: historian Artem Efimov, who serves the editor-in-chief of Meduza’s Signal newsletter, College of West Anglia historian James Pearce (author of “The Use of History in Putin’s Russia”), and University of Oxford Professor Polly Jones, who’s currently completing a book titled “Gulag Fiction.” Timestamps for this episode: (5:45) The textbook’s authors: Vladimir Medinsky, Anatoly Torkunov, and Alexander Chubaryan (11:40) Long-standing trends in how Russian history is taught in grade schools (15:19) Guessing at Putin’s thought process on a unified history textbook (23:00) Whitewashing Stalinism? (25:50) The Suez Crisis, the Berlin Crisis, the Hungarian Revolution, the Prague Spring (31:57) Teaching history to teenagersКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

“This is a history of a place that doesn’t exist. There is no such thing as Eastern Europe anymore. No one comes from there.”  These are the opening lines of Goodbye, Eastern Europe, a new book by writer and historian Jacob Mikanowski that offers a sweeping history of a region that he argues is disappearing. Not in the literal sense, of course; the lands historically considered “Eastern Europe” are very much still there. But the term itself (much like “post-Soviet” and “former Soviet republics”) has fallen out of fashion. And the entangled diversity that was once the hallmark of Eastern European societies was swept away by the violence of the 20th century — so much so that Mikanowski considers it a “lost world.” Recounting centuries of history in just a few hundred pages, Mikanowski’s book takes readers on a journey across the region stretching between present-day Germany and Russia, going as far north as the Baltic countries and as far south as the Balkans. And while the empires that once ruled there and the nation-states that succeeded them are part of the picture, Goodbye, Eastern Europe is far from your standard political history. Instead, Mikanowski weaves together years of research and travel experience with his own family’s past, opening a window into the complexities and absurdities of everyday life.  “A lot of histories of Eastern Europe [...] are very much like a battle between superpowers,” Mikanowski tells Eilish Hart, editor of Meduza’s weekly newsletter The Beet, on this week’s show. “I want to tell the story of what’s happening in between. Because to me, that’s the Eastern European experience — especially in the 20th century. Finding agency amid a world that’s constantly robbing you of it.” Timestamps for this episode: (2:12) What — and where — is Eastern Europe? And in what sense is it disappearing? (4:37) Blending academic research with travel experience and family history (11:07) Why there’s more to Eastern European history than “Hitler versus Stalin”  (13:56) Eastern Europe as a “lost world” of interwoven diversity (16:50) What’s missed when history is written from imperial capitals? (19:21) The politics of history in Eastern Europe todayКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny famously returned to Moscow in January 2021, where he was promptly arrested at the airport for supposed parole violations. A month later, his suspended sentence was replaced with a 2.5-year prison sentence. Roughly a year later, in March 2022, a judge added another nine years to his prison term, convicting him in a kangaroo court of embezzlement and contempt of court. So, Navalny has at least another decade of imprisonment ahead of him, but it will likely be far more. In a new trial with a verdict expected on Friday, August 4, public prosecutors have asked a judge to sentence Navalny to an additional 20 years in prison on charges of “creating an extremist organization,” “inciting extremism,” and creating a nonprofit organization that infringed on Russian citizens’ rights, financed extremism, and involved minors in dangerous activities. Oh, and they say he “rehabilitated Nazism.” In late April, the prosecution dumped a 196-volume case file on Navalny, and the court gave him a week to review the materials. Before this, Navalny had said he expects to be charged in a separate case, in a military court actually, for crimes related to “terrorism,” probably facing life imprisonment.  Ahead of the verdict in this latest case against Russia’s best-known anti-Kremlin opposition leader, The Naked Pravda spoke to political scientist Mikhail Turchenko and Wilson Center senior adviser and Meduza Ideas editor Maxim Trudolyubov about Alexey Navalny, his movement, and about how he’s changed Russian politics even as he languishes behind bars.Как поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

In the final week before the State Duma’s summer recess, Russian lawmakers have been ramming through some curious legislation, including several initiatives the authorities would apparently like to roll out now before Putin’s re-election campaign presumably kicks off in the fall. Notably, one last-minute amendment empowers the president to charge governors with the creation of “special militarized formations” during periods of mobilization, wartime, and martial law. These new armed groups, controlled by the state but separate from the military, will be yet another factor in Russia’s complicated civil-military relations — a subject that’s gained even more global attention in the aftermath of last month’s mutiny by Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner Group mercenaries. To learn more about the “specialized enterprises” forged in this new legislation and to explore what such a project says about the relationship between the military and everything else in Russia, Meduza welcomes back Kirill Shamiev, a Russian political scientist and a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, who recently wrote an essay on this subject for Carnegie Politika, titled “Suspensions, Detentions, and Mutinies: The Growing Gulf in Russia’s Civil-Military Relations.” Timestamps for this episode: (3:27) Is the Russian military’s chief struggle that Putin values loyalty over competence? (7:56) Former Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov’s reforms and civilian innovations (10:51) Putin’s reluctance to spend political capital (15:23) Russia’s forthcoming “specialized militarized formations”Как поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

Since the early aftermath of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, many major Western companies have been in various stages of divesting from Russia. Nearly a year and a half into the war, we’ve entered a new phase of business relations, as the Kremlin has started nationalizing foreign companies’ Russian assets. The latest watershed moment occurred on April 25, when Putin issued an executive order allowing the Russian authorities to place the Russian assets of companies from “unfriendly nations” under the state’s “temporary administration.” As a result, Russia seized the assets of Uniper Russia, including Uniper’s 84% stake in the power generation company Unipro, which was valued at $5.5 billion before the invasion. More recently, earlier this week, President Putin placed the Russian subsidiaries of French yogurt maker Danone and Danish brewer Carlsberg under the Russian state’s “temporary management,” effectively seizing these businesses. The Federal Property Management Agency has already entrusted Danone Russia’s CEO position to Ramzan Kadyrov’s nephew. For some guidance through this tumultuous period of international sanctions and elite business politics in Russia, Meduza spoke to Alexandra Prokopenko, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, who worked at Russia’s Central Bank and at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow from 2017 until early 2022. Timestamps for this episode: (2:15) Putin seizes Unipro (4:23) Putin seizes Danone Russia and Baltika (8:55) Has the war been good for business? (12:59) Where’s the business community stand on the invasion? (15:26) The fight over Western assets (17:23) Chinese business interests (and unease) in all these confiscations and fire salesКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

How many Russians have been killed in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine? If you visited Meduza’s website this week, you’ll know that we ran the numbers and estimate the total death toll among Russian combatants to be 47,000 men. That’s three times more than all the Soviet troops who died over 10 years of fighting in Afghanistan, and it’s nine times more than how many Russian soldiers were killed in the first Russian-Chechen War in the mid-1990s. To discuss the methodology, insights, and obstacles behind this joint investigation, The Naked Pravda spoke to one of the report’s authors. Timestamps for this episode: (4:34) An author’s reaction to readers’ reactions to the story (6:53) Modeling the demographic differences between combatants (9:51) Estimating Russia’s unclaimed bodies (12:53) How the 47,000-man death toll fits into the larger narrative about Russian combat deaths (15:54) Confidence levels with this analysis (18:01) The geographic angle in probate recordsКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

Moscow and Kyiv have traded allegations that the other side is planning a disastrous attack on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant that they warn could cause a major radiological event. Last week, Ukrainian President Zelensky warned that Russian occupation forces have placed “objects resembling explosives” on some rooftops at the power station, “perhaps to simulate an attack on the plant.” Officials in Moscow, on the other hand, have their own allegations, claiming that Ukraine plans to frame Russian troops for an attack on the plant. Meanwhile, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency are on the ground but still aren’t getting unrestricted access. On July 7, the IAEA reported that they visited the isolation gate separating the cooling pond from what remains of the Kakhovka reservoir after the destruction of the downstream dam a month ago. They found no leakage from the pond, and they’ve observed no visible indications of mines or explosives anywhere inside the plant, but they still haven’t been allowed onto the rooftops of reactor units 3 and 4 and parts of the turbine halls. To make sense of these reports and to respond to the panic that this situation provokes, The Naked Pravda welcomes back nuclear arms expert Pavel Podvig, a senior researcher at the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research. Timestamps for this episode: (4:37) Why it’s wrong to fear a repeat of the Chernobyl or Fukushima disasters at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (9:48) Disagreements among nuclear experts about the dangers now in Ukraine (13:06) Weighing the reports and allegations from Moscow and Kyiv (18:22) Escalating rhetoric about nuclear weapons in Russia’s foreign-policy expert community (23:12) Why there are probably no Russian nukes in Belarus, at least not yet

Yevgeny Prigozhin is now (in)famous around the world for mounting a failed mutiny against the Russian military in a last-ditch attempt to avoid being absorbed into it, as the Kremlin reclaims its monopoly on violence and ends an experiment with outsourcing bits of the Ukraine invasion to mercenaries. The Naked Pravda has focused numerous times before on Wagner Group, and it’s now time to write the private military company’s obituary. Or is it? How did Prigozhin manage to convince his men to embark on this misadventure? What did we learn about the Russian political elite in this crisis? And what should we expect in Belarus, where at least some remnant of Wagner Group is said to be headed? For insights into the failed insurrection and its aftermath, Meduza turns to three experts. Timestamps for this episode: (3:40) Kirill Shamiev, Russian political scientist and visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (19:43) Маrgarita Zavadskaya, senior research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (27:17) Katia Glod, policy fellow at the European Leadership Network and nonresident fellow at CEPA’s Democratic Resilience Program

On June 14, the Russian State Duma passed the first reading of a new bill that would essentially ban every aspect of gender transitions, from changing your gender marker in official documents to health care like hormone replacement therapy and gender-affirming surgeries. The only exceptions would be for people with “congenital physiological anomalies,” meaning intersex people, and even then it would only be possible in state hospitals after review by a medical panel. Russia has never been a safe or comfortable place for trans people, but until now, it’s at least been possible for them to legally and medically transition. Since the start of the full-scale war, though, Russia’s leaders have actively begun demonizing LGBTQ+ people, painting them as an existential threat to the country being exported by the West. In October, for example, one lawmaker said Russian troops in Ukraine are fighting for “families to consist of a mom, a dad, and children — not some guy, some other guy, and some other who-knows-what.” To learn about how the new legislation and the rise in official anti-trans rhetoric is likely to affect trans Russians, Meduza spoke to Nef Cellarius, an activist from the LGBTQ+ rights group Coming Out; Anna Maria Tesfaye, one of the cofounders of the organization Queer Svit; and a trans woman currently living in Russia. Timestamps for this episode: (2:58) The main challenges facing trans Russians in recent years (4:40) The likely effects of the ban on gender transitions (7:20) Why are the Russian authorities doing this now? (8:50) How many trans people have fled Russia (10:50) The difficulties trans Russians encounter abroad (12:26) Why not all trans people in Russia want to leave (13:35) How Russian lawmakers are the real agents of “foreign influence” from the West

About a month ago, the Russian authorities outlawed Greenpeace, giving it the same treatment as Meduza, slapping the organization with an “undesirability” label that makes its operations illegal. Greenpeace International “poses a danger to the foundations of Russia’s constitutional order and security,” declared the Prosecutor General’s Office. Its work “actively promotes a political agenda and attempts to interfere in the state’s internal affairs, with an aim to undermine its economic foundations.” Greenpeace itself says the crackdown — which forced it to dissolve its Russian branch — was retaliation for its opposition to proposed changes to the Russian environmental law that would lift the ban on logging around Lake Baikal, a protected ecosystem in Siberia and the world’s deepest freshwater lake. A couple of months earlier, Russia’s Justice Ministry designated the World Wildlife Fund as a “foreign agent” for allegedly “trying to influence the decisions of the executive and legislative branches of the Russian Federation, and to hinder the completion of industrial and infrastructural projects” — “under the guise of protecting nature and the environment.” To understand the short-term and long-term consequences of these designations and the fallout of Russia’s wartime environmental policies, Meduza spoke to environmental journalist Angelina Davydova, who recently coauthored an article with Eugene Simonov, titled “Does Russia Have a ‘Green’ Future?” that explores where Russia is headed environmentally in light of the war effort against Ukraine and all the Western sanctions imposed as a result. Timestamps for this episode: (6:56) Russian environmentalism after the crackdown on Greenpeace and the WWF (10:31) Declining professionalism and corruption in environmental science (16:25) Russia’s historical approach to nature reserves (19:18) Opportunities for ‘great green power’ (25:36) The chances of environmental cooperation with the Putin regime at war

Ten years ago this week, a curious thing happened: during the intermission of a ballet performance at the State Kremlin Palace, Vladimir Putin and his wife of thirty years gave an interview to a TV news crew where they revealed that they were no longer married. It was a brief exchange, but it’s also one of the rare moments in his long presidency when Putin spoke openly about his family life. Back in June 2013, there was already wide speculation about Vladimir Putin’s secret love life, which focused largely on his alleged relationship with former Olympic gymnast Alina Kabayeva. Since then, investigative journalists have uncovered a lot more, digging up evidence of other lovers, other children, and the elaborate schemes Putin and his entourage use to conceal their wealth and corruption. On this week’s show, to discuss the latest revelations about Putin’s family, The Naked Pravda spoke to investigative journalists Roman Badanin, the founder and editor-in-chief of Proekt Media, and Andrey Zakharov, a special correspondent who’s reported groundbreaking stories at outlets like Fontanka News, RBC, Proekt, and BBC News Russian. The interviews focus particularly on a June 1, 2023, story about Putin’s ex-son-in-law and a November 2020 article about the president’s apparent third daughter. Timestamps for this episode: (5:55) After all these years, what’s still surprising about Putin’s secret family life? (10:18) Why does Putin’s family like to keep marriages and properties off official records? (13:32) How property ownership works in Putin’s inner circle (15:45) Ukrainian drones (18:51) The biggest blind spots for journalists when it comes to Putin (23:26) Why all the secrecy? (27:34) Finding Putin’s third daughter

Last week, on May 25, the digital-rights group Access Now broke a story revealing that Pegasus spyware was used to hack civil-society figures in Armenia. Notably, these infiltrations took place against the backdrop of the conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh — making this investigation’s findings the first documented evidence of Pegasus spyware being used in the context of an international war. Never heard of Pegasus? Well, buckle up. Developed by the Israeli firm NSO Group, this frighteningly sophisticated piece of hacking software is capable of infecting both iOS and Android devices through so-called “zero-click” attacks. In other words, it can worm its way into your phone — often by exploiting vulnerabilities that the manufacturer has yet to find and fix — and you’d be none the wiser. Once installed, Pegasus grants total access to your device, allowing the hacker to not only view your messages, emails, and photos, but also track your phone’s location, record calls, and use the camera and microphone to capture what’s going on around you. “Basically, the attacker gets control of the settings and has even more control than you yourself have over your device,” Natalia Krapiva, a tech-legal counsel at Access Now, told Eilish Hart, editor of Meduza’s weekly newsletter The Beet, in an interview for this week’s show. Timestamps for this episode: (3:46) What is Pegasus spyware? (5:31) What is NSO Group, the Israeli firm that developed the tool? (7:25) Access Now’s investigative findings (12:56) Reactions from those targeted in this spying campaign (15:15) Who is behind hacking all these figures in Armenia? (19:28) Using Pegasus in the context of a war (22:50) Reactions to Access Now’s investigation (25:20) International spyware policymaking, going forward

After February 24, 2022, when many Western Internet companies withdrew from Russia, and the Russian state itself outlawed other online platforms, the RuNet’s future seemed uncertain. How would Russia’s Internet market develop? Where would the authorities turn for the technology needed to pursue “digital sovereignty” and more advanced censorship tools? More than a year later, the RuNet hasn’t collapsed, Russia’s biggest Internet tech company Yandex posted almost $136 million in profits last year, and Russia’s means of policing of online speech are more hidden from the public than ever. At the same time, Yandex is carving itself up, selling off assets and moving entire divisions abroad to stay competitive internationally. And networks like YouTube and Telegram, which host a lot of content the Kremlin hardly welcomes, are still available in Russia. To get a sense of the current state of the Russian Internet and online free speech in Russia today, The Naked Pravda turns to Dr. Mariëlle Wijermars, a CORE fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies at the University of Helsinki and the coauthor of the recent article “Digital Authoritarianism and Russia’s War Against Ukraine.” Meduza also spoke to Sarkis Darbinyan, the senior legal expert at RosKomSvoboda, an Internet watchdog that’s monitored the RuNet since the early days of the Kremlin’s coordinated online censorship. Timestamps for this episode: (4:41) The Russian state’s ongoing efforts to court prominent bloggers (10:43) Facebook and Instagram in Russia today (12:28) The story behind RosKomSvoboda (14:26) How Russia’s Internet censors are getting smarter (16:58) Roles for artificial intelligence in Internet censorship (18:35) What Russia might block next (21:03) How Russian law enforcement find, flag, and prosecute illegal online speech (24:16) Global trends in Internet censorship

Russia is notorious for its political prisoners, and the authorities have only added to this population by adopting numerous laws since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine that outlaw most forms of anti-war self-expression. Figures like journalist Ivan Safronov and opposition politician Alexey Navalny were already locked up before the full-scale invasion, and now they’re joined by politicians like Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Murza. As relatively unknown activists are dragged into court for minor anti-war actions and the Kremlin takes hostages like American journalist Evan Gershkovich, Russia’s prison system is regularly in the news, but how is it actually built and what’s life like for those inside and their loved ones on the outside? For answers, Meduza turns to Professor Judith Pallot, the research director of the Gulag Echoes project at the University of Helsinki’s Aleksanteri Institute (you can find the project’s blog here), and journalist Ksenia Mironova, the cohost of the Time No Longer (Времени больше не будет) podcast, where she interviews experts and the friends and relatives of political prisoners. Mironova is also the partner of Ivan Safronov, another journalist now serving a 22-year “treason” sentence in prison. Timestamps for this episode: (1:48) A word from The Beet (6:31) How big is Russia’s prison population? (11:01) The prison system’s history of “reforms” (17:48) Is today’s system reverting to the Gulag? (20:00) Conditions behind bars (28:19) Comparing the Russian and Ukrainian prison systems and appreciating civil society’s oversight (34:05) Ksenia Mironova on the lives of political prisoners and their partners

Bloggers and news outlets in Russia are abuzz with speculation about what could be the start of Ukraine’s long-awaited spring counteroffensive. Experts have had months to speculate about what shape the counteroffensive might take and what its chances of success are, but recent attacks in Moscow, Crimea, and border regions raise other questions about how the Russian authorities are guarding territories that are, from Kyiv’s perspective, behind enemy lines. To learn more about how Russia defends against Ukrainian drone attacks and special operations, and what these tactics mean for Kyiv’s war effort, Meduza spoke to military analyst and Foreign Policy Research Institute senior fellow Rob Lee and investigative journalist and The Insider editor-in-chief Roman Dobrokhotov. Timestamps for this episode: (4:21) Were the May 3, 2023, drone strikes on the Kremlin a Russian false-flag operation or a Ukrainian special operation? (9:09) How hard is it to track UAVs? (12:16) The war’s growing symmetry (18:30) The costs of a drone attack fleet (23:02) Attributing attacks inside Russia and Crimea (25:46) The effects of bombings inside Russia (29:04) The state of Russia’s homeland defenses

Victory in the Second World War, in Europe anyway, came a day later to the Soviet Union. That’s a technicality, of course. Germany’s definitive surrender was signed late in the evening on May 8, and it was already May 9 to the east in Moscow. This month marks the 78th anniversary of that victory, and though the West has enjoyed one more calendar day in this post-war world than Moscow, the defeat of the Nazis has remained central to Russian national identity and political culture in ways that would probably make your head spin if you’re from Europe or North America. On this week’s episode, Meduza looks at the role of Victory Day in modern Russia, focusing on memory politics and how the Putin regime uses the holiday and the legacy of the Second World War generally to achieve its own ends during Russia’s bloody invasion of Ukraine. At the time of this release, May 9 is just a few days away, and the holiday is unusual this year because numerous cities across Russia have actually canceled their public parades and moved festivities back to the virtual spaces they inhabited at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. The war in Ukraine has forced some changes in one of Russia’s holiest of holidays. This week’s guest is Dr. Allyson Edwards, a lecturer in global histories and politics at Bath Spa University in England. Her research specializes on the topics of Russian militarism, youth militarization, and the use of history and commemoration. Timestamps for this episode: (5:41) How did the Russian state’s modern-day WWII mythology come to be? (11:49) What might today’s Russian militarism look like without the Great Patriotic War? (13:39) What happened to the anti-militarism side of Victory Day? (16:33) Is this Putin’s militarism or Russia’s militarism? (18:24) What role does “humiliation” play in all this? (20:59) The Immortal Regiment (23:06) This year’s parade cancelations

Formal treason charges and denied bail for journalist Evan Gershkovich, a rejected appeal from opposition politician Ilya Yashin (who’s serving an eight-and-a-half-year prison sentence for spreading supposed “disinformation” about Russian war atrocities in Ukraine), reportedly new felony charges against jailed anti-corruption icon Alexey Navalny, and 25 years behind bars for Vladimir Kara-Murza, the anti-Kremlin politician who helped lobby into existence the Magnitsky Act, which authorizes the American government to sanction foreign government officials around the world (especially in Russia) that are human rights offenders, freezing their assets and banning them from entering the U.S. These courtroom news headlines are all from just the past few days. And this doesn’t even touch on the thousands of cases against less prominent, sometimes nearly invisible activists and even apolitical types who find themselves caught in the teeth of Russia’s increasingly brutal prosecution of political disloyalty. As political persecution in Russia escalates to something resembling moments from the Stalinist period, supporting the legal system’s victims and simply understanding its intricacies become matters of life and death. And that is at the center of work by the journalists, lawyers, and activists who make up a project called OVD-Info. To explain the organization’s operations, The Naked Pravda spoke to journalist and activist Dan Storyev, who serves as the managing editor of OVD-Info’s English-language edition and the author of The Dissident Digest, a weekly newsletter summarizing and explaining major events in Russia’s domestic political repressions. Timestamps for this episode: (4:57) What is OVD-Info? (8:32) Who qualifies for assistance from OVD-Info? (9:59) What assistance can OVD-Info offer to victims of political repression? (14:19) What factors determine whom the Putin regime actually prosecutes? (17:02) What legal statutes are most common in political prosecutions? (20:43) The ruling against Vladimir Kara-Murza (23:39) Prison life in Russia today

Throughout its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has repeatedly and regularly carried out attacks where it’s either tolerated civilian casualties as acceptable collateral damage or even embraced indiscriminate tactics deliberately. Considered alongside what’s happening domestically in Russia, where political repressions underway for years already suddenly escalated to something approaching martial law, it’s fair to say that state terrorism is a key component in the Kremlin’s war policy today. But the Putin regime doesn’t have a monopoly on terrorist violence, as two prominent assassinations have demonstrated in the past several months. Last August, pro-invasion propagandist Daria Dugina, who’s also the daughter of Eurasianist philosopher and ideologue Alexander Dugin, died behind the wheel of a car after a bomb under the driver’s seat exploded as she drove home from a festival outside Moscow. More recently, on April 2 of this year, a pro-invasion blogger named Maxim Fomin, better known as Vladlen Tatarsky, perished at a café in St. Petersburg when a bomb hidden inside a gift exploded in his face at a speaking event. The ideological targeting here recalls attacks in late 19th- and early 20th-century Russia, but what’s the history of terrorism as a phenomenon, as a concept, and as a word in Russia? For answers, The Naked Pravda turned to two scholars: Dr. Lynn Ellen Patyk, an associate professor at Dartmouth College and the author of Written in Blood: Revolutionary Terrorism and Russian Literary Culture, 1861–1881, and Dr. Iain Lauchlan, a senior lecturer in history at the University of Edinburgh, where he focuses particularly on the Russian Revolution and the Stalin era, and the history of intelligence, conspiracy, and espionage. Timestamps for this episode: (5:07) The origins of revolutionary terrorism in Russia (11:03) Assassination campaigns and escalating violence into the 20th century (19:14) Domestic terrorism vs. foreign terrorism (20:55) Two waves of terrorism (23:51) Studying terrorism from a literary perspective (29:52) The role of women then and now in terrorist attacks

A new investigative report published jointly by Meduza and The Bell looks closely at Rostec, one of Russia’s key state corporations, and its campaign to exert control over the public discourse on Telegram about Rostec’s operations and executives. Rostec is responsible for developing, manufacturing, and exporting high-tech products in aviation, mechanical engineering, radio electronics, medical technology, and a lot more. This is the Kremlin’s arms conglomerate, controlling outfits like the Kalashnikov Concern, Uralvagonzavod, Avtovaz, and many more factories that make the war machines now wreaking havoc in Ukraine. Rostec is as serious as they come, and its long-time CEO, Sergey Chemezov, has been running the show since 2007 since the state corporation was founded in 2007. The history between Chemezov and Vladimir Putin goes back to the 1980s when the two were both Soviet intelligence agents in Dresden. So why does an enterprise with so much clout bother with bloggers on Telegram? And what does it say about the information available to Russians in an age without an independent press? Journalist Svetlana Reiter, who coauthored Meduza’s report on Rostec and Telegram, joins The Naked Pravda to discuss the story. Timestamps for this episode: (6:48) What’s so special about Vasily Brovko, Rostec’s director of special assignments (10:09) What’s so special about Telegram in Russia? (13:37) Fighting extortion albeit with ulterior motives (23:03) Anonymity on Telegram or a lack thereof

In a new investigative report, journalists at Mediazona counted 536 service-related felony cases filed in Russian garrison courts against soldiers since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine started last year. Most of these charges involve AWOL offenses, often resulting in probation sentences that allow offenders to return to combat. More serious crimes include refusal to obey orders, striking a commanding officer, and outright desertion. Citing national-security grounds (and orders from Russia’s Defense Ministry and Federal Security Service), military courts frequently conceal information about cases involving “crimes against military service.” Mediazona dug through available records and spoke to attorneys to learn what it could about this growing wave of insubordination among Russian troops. To discuss the investigation, Mediazona reporter and data-team journalist David Frenkel joined The Naked Pravda. Timestamps for this episode: (4:02) Why Putin doesn’t rescind his mobilization execution order (8:51) Is AWOL the most common offense by Russian soldiers or merely what Russia’s military courts prefer to prosecute? (14:52) Rational choice if you’re a Russian soldier who doesn’t want to fight in Ukraine (16:39) Morale and discipline (24:54) Conscientious objection (26:39) Show trials and judges’ “preventative talks” with soldiers

Show host Kevin Rothrock revisits noteworthy news stories in Russia from mid-March 2023 and celebrates 99 episodes of The Naked Pravda by reading some listener feedback. Timestamps for this episode: (0:01) Evgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group paramilitary cartel starts recruiting on Pornhub (2:26) Russia knocks an American UAV into the Black Sea (3:52) The Russian Orthodox deacon who turned to Afro-Brazilian mysticism and invented a wife to cohost his anti-Ukrainian hate blog (5:44) How Kirill Butylin got sentenced to 13 years in prison for throwing Molotov cocktails at an army recruitment center (7:41) The story of Masha Moskaleva, the sixth grader taken from father after she turned in an anti-war drawing for art class (12:19) The latest srach (shitstorm) within the Russian opposition sparks a debate about sanctions relief and exit routes for “good oligarchs” (14:52) To celebrate 99 episodes of The Naked Pravda, Kevin shares some reviews from listeners

Late last month, there was a sudden and brief explosion of news reports in Russia and Ukraine about an ascendant youth movement of violence supposedly built around the subculture of anime fans. According to vague stories in the media, fistfights were breaking out at shopping malls and other public places as part of a transnational campaign by something called “PMC Ryodan.” After a large fight in St. Petersburg led to dozens of arrests of Ryodan and anti-Ryodan youths, a federal lawmaker in the State Duma even appealed publicly to Russia’s Interior Ministry, demanding a ban on all content associated with “PMC Ryodan.” There was mass police action in Ukraine, too, where officials called PMC Ryodan an instrument of “Russian propagandists” leading an “informational-psychological operation” to “destabilize the internal situation in Ukraine.” It turns out that the hysteria surrounding this youth subculture almost completely misunderstood the sporadic violence. Semantically, the first thing to grasp is that “PMC,” or private military company, is used facetiously when describing the Ryodan group. Members of this anime fan community are actually more likely to be the targets — not the instigators — of the brawls breaking out at youth hangouts. In fact, it seems the group got its “PMC” nickname after its followers started fighting back against the jocks who like to bully them. The PMC Ryodan scare was especially perplexing abroad, where casual observers typically view Russian youth culture through the lens of a pro-Kremlin/anti-Kremlin dichotomy. But most young people in Russia, just like most people anywhere, don’t live and breathe polemics at every moment of the day with every fiber of their being. So, what can we say about Russia’s youth culture beyond the familiar Kremlin-based divide? The Naked Pravda asked two scholars for answers. Timestamps for this episode: (6:41) Dr. Kristiina Silvan, a postdoctoral fellow in the Russia, EU’s Eastern Neighborhood, and Eurasia research program at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, describes the differences between contemporary Western sociological methodologies and research approaches from the USSR. (10:06) Dr. Felix Krawatzek, a senior researcher at the Center for East European and International Studies in Berlin, compares survey studies and fieldwork. (13:04) The political vs. apolitical (22:34) Russian-language culture and subcultures spreading internationally online (25:31) The significance of so-called “soccer hooligans” and gopniki (32:13) The 1990s as a reference point

On Thursday morning, March 2, a few dozen armed men crossed over from Ukraine and raided two small towns in the Russian border region of Bryansk. The militants — described as “Ukrainian saboteurs” in hurried Russian news reports and later identified as soldiers in the so-called Russian Volunteer Corps — posed for some pictures, recorded a few breathless videos, and retreated back into Ukraine in short order. Conflicting reports followed about clashes with the incursion group: the Russian authorities said a couple of motorists were killed, but there are some odd inconsistencies in the footage later released by the Federal Security Service, while the militants themselves say they got into a shootout in one town but didn’t see anyone killed. The March 2 incursion itself is fairly underwhelming, and it’s hardly the first of its kind in the Bryansk area, where Russia’s border with Ukraine is notoriously hard to defend. What makes the raid stand out is the leader of the group behind it: Denis Nikitin, a Russian neo-Nazi with a long history of far-right activism across Europe and especially, most recently, inside Ukraine. For more about Nikitin and the Russian Volunteer Corps, The Naked Pravda spoke to journalist Michael Colborne, who heads the Bellingcat Monitoring Project and authored the 2022 book From the Fires of War: Ukraine’s Azov Movement and the Global Far Right. Timestamps for this episode: (3:56) What is the Russian Volunteer Corps and who is Denis Nikitin? (13:49) What is Denis Nikitin’s ideology? (20:19) The ties between the Russian Volunteer Corps and Ukraine’s Armed Forces (24:23) Previous border incursions into the Bryansk region (30:57) Probably not a Russian false flag

Amid an escalating public conflict between Russia’s Defense Ministry and Evgeny Prigozhin, The Naked Pravda builds on last year’s episode about the warlord-tycoon, looking more closely at the paramilitary cartel he fronts. To understand how Wagner Group should be defined, why its brutality is so valuable to Moscow, and how its recruitment of prisoners has played out, Meduza spoke to three experts. Timestamps for this episode: (3:55) Candace Rondeaux (a professor of practice and fellow at the Melikian Center for Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies and the Center on the Future of War at Arizona State University, and the director of Future Frontlines at New America) explains how Wagner Group is best defined. (5:50) Andreas Heinemann-Grüder (who teaches Political Science at the University of Bonn in Germany and is a senior researcher at the Bonn International Center for Conflict Studies) break down how Russia’s mercenaries practice “exterminatory warfare.” (7:38) Bellingcat training-and-research director Aric Toler talks about Wagner Group’s promises of pardons and burials with honors. (10:07) Andreas Heinemann-Grüder says Wagner’s recruitment of prisoners undermined the group’s internal cohesion and “didn’t work out” in the end. (14:21) Why does Moscow need Wagner Group at all in the middle of an invasion openly waged by Russia’s official military? (17:41) Candace Rondeaux explains the difference between designations for organized crime and terrorism, from a foreign policy perspective. (22:27) Wagner Group as a front for Russian state corporations’ interests abroad. (24:21) Aric Toler examines what funerals for three 1990s-era crime bosses recruited by Wagner say about the group’s dubious promises to inmates. (28:14) Candace Rondeaux highlights the ways in which Wagner Group is a social movement too. (31:50) How to read Prigozhin-linked channels online and Russia’s Z-blogosphere more broadly. (37:10) Why ending the war demands a resolution to Wagner Group’s fate.

In early February 2022, as Russia massed more than 100,000 troops on the border with Ukraine, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán traveled to Moscow on what he described as a “peace mission.” Standing alongside Vladimir Putin at a press conference, Orbán urged other Western countries to adopt a “Hungarian model” of relations with Russia — one supposedly based on “mutual respect.” Just a few weeks later, the Kremlin launched a full-scale invasion of Hungary’s neighbor, Ukraine.  For Orbán and his government, the invasion came as a shock. And for a brief moment, it seemed as though Budapest would finally reverse its longstanding pro-Kremlin stance. But instead, Hungarian officials have opted to walk the line, supporting round after round of EU sanctions against Russia and welcoming more than 2.1 million Ukrainian refugees, while also blocking the passage of weapons through Hungarian territory to Ukraine, brandishing their EU veto power, and refusing to forsake Russian energy imports.  To find out more about Russian influence in Hungary and its impact on the Orbán government’s response to the war in Ukraine, The Naked Pravda sat down with three expert guests.  Timestamps for this episode: (1:36) Journalist Szabolcs Panyi from the Budapest-based investigative outlet Direkt36 on the money trail coming from Moscow and uncovering Russian espionage in Hungary.  (10:44) Andras Tóth-Czifra, a non-resident fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), on Hungary’s response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.  (14:14) Zsuzsanna Vegh, a visiting fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and a lecturer and researcher at European University Viadrina, on how the Orbán government’s business-as-usual Russia policy puts Hungary at odds with its European partners. 

In the initial months after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, hundreds of thousands of people left Russia. Some were fleeing the war’s economic repercussions or the country’s accelerated descent into authoritarianism, while others saw emigration as a moral necessity. Then, in September, Putin’s mobilization announcement set off a new wave of panic, causing another 700,000 or so to leave Russia in a span of just two weeks (though some have since returned). A huge number of these wartime emigrants ended up in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, sparking what some have termed a “Russian migrant crisis.” The result on the ground in these countries has been an unprecedented reversal of a decades-old status quo that had Central Asian migrants moving to Russia to perform manual labor for relatively high wages, often while being subjected to racism and mistreatment from locals. To learn about how this reckoning has played out on a human level, The Naked Pravda spoke to migration researcher and journalist Yan Matusevich, who’s spent the last five months conducting interviews with Russians newly arrived in Central Asia. Timestamps for this episode: (5:16) Who are the people who have moved from Russia to Central Asia? What makes this a ‘monumental’ moment? (19:41) How have people in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan reacted to the influx of Russians? What difficult conversations has this migration forced people to have? (28:54) Who gets overlooked in the discussion about wartime migrants to Central Asia? (35:40) How do these migrants from Russia fit into traditional migration categories? Are they refugees? Asylum seekers? None of the above? (45:01) Why did Kazakhstan recently make its visa laws slightly less friendly to Russian citizens? How will this affect Russian emigrants there? (52:51) Why do some Russians in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan fear being deported to Russia? Is this likely to happen?

On May 11, 2022, The Washington Post announced that it was establishing a new bureau in Kyiv with Isabelle Khurshudyan leading coverage as Ukraine bureau chief. Elements of The Post’s expansive coverage dedicated to the war in Ukraine include a 24-hour live updates page on The Post’s site, a Telegram channel for news updates (now with more than 40,000 subscribers), and a database of verified, on-the-ground footage. Ms. Khurshudyan joined The Naked Pravda to talk about The Post’s Kyiv bureau and her experiences reporting on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Timestamps for this episode: (2:38) How did The Post’s Ukraine bureau come about? Will it remain in place after the war ends? (7:19) How readers in the United States respond to reporting about the war in Ukraine (10:07) How “burnout” affects journalists reporting in Ukraine on the war (13:43) How to get embedded with the Ukrainian military (18:14) Finding information about Ukraine’s occupied territories where there are no Western journalists (20:52) Navigating the wartime legal and cultural sensitivities surrounding certain kinds of speech (25:57) War reporting vs. hockey journalism

Writer Anna Arutunyan, author of “The Putin Mystique: Inside Russia’s Power Cult” (2014), has a new book out about the early pivotal years of Russia’s invasion of the Donbas, titled “Hybrid Warriors: Proxies, Freelancers and Moscow’s Struggle for Ukraine.” A longtime journalist, former International Crisis Group senior analyst, and now a Wilson Center global fellow, Arutunyan draws on interviews, reporting from the warzone, and other research to reconstruct the relationships between civilians, non-state actors, and the Kremlin that developed after Moscow annexed Crimea and began its intervention in the Donbas that spiraled into the godawful war we see today. Timestamps for this episode: (3:24) Is “hybridity” still a meaningful research topic in the war today in Ukraine? (5:56) Is Vladimir Putin’s “power vertical” a myth? (10:48) Has Putin’s ideology evolved over the past two decades or is it all improvised? (15:08) Does Putin still have the flexibility as a leader to backtrack in Ukraine and end the war? (19:39) What a sense of disenfranchisement and victimhood can do. (25:30) What’s the use of empathy? (28:42) Vladimir the Bureaucrat.

On this week’s episode of The Naked Pravda, Meduza speaks to anthropologist Jeremy Morris about foreign Russia scholars’ growing reliance on state television as a means of monitoring what is thought to be public opinion. Dr. Morris, a professor of Russian and Global Studies in the School of Culture and Society at Aarhus University in Denmark, argues that researchers should devote more attention to less controlled platforms on social media and exercise more caution when generalizing based on survey data collected in Russia. For more of Dr. Morris’ methodological insights, check out his blog: Postsocialism.org. Timestamps for this episode: (4:39) A recent viral video from the Luhansk region released by Graham Phillips (11:19) Viral videos vs. state propagandists’ rants (16:09) Problems with surveys and survey data (28:03) How to use social media for research (responsibly) (33:32) So, how should we measure Russians’ support for the war?

In an article titled “Ukrainian Voices?” recently published in New Left Review, sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko warns that talk in the West about Ukraine’s “decolonization” often focuses too much on “symbols and identity” and not enough on “social transformation.” Representing the war in Ukraine “as an ideological conflict of democracy against autocracy” is intellectually inconsistent, he writes, and “works poorly” with audiences across the Global South. Dr. Ishchenko criticizes the identarian articulation of Ukraine’s decolonization, which he says reduces the agenda to “anti-Russian and anti-communist identity politics”; it’s an obstacle to “a universally relevant perspective on Ukraine.” In the days since it was released, Dr. Ishchenko’s article has won praise and provoked fierce criticism from peers and pundits alike. This week, he joined The Naked Pravda to respond to some of that feedback and delve a bit deeper into the ideas he raised in the essay. Timestamps for this episode: (4:40) The article’s academic origins (6:52) Has the “decolonization” agenda lost its way? (11:34) What’s an alternative form of decolonization in Ukraine? (15:35) What are the differences between Ukraine’s “privileged voices” with access to the West and the Ukrainians who remain largely unrepresented abroad? (23:00) Don’t call it an ideological conflict of democracy against autocracy? (29:52) Criticisms of Soviet nostalgia

Given current events in Russia and Ukraine, much of today’s expertise about Russia is again created remotely. It simply isn’t safe for many journalists and researchers to be in the country today due mainly to the militarized censorship of speech related to the invasion of Ukraine. So, what happens when Russia experts are forced to work outside of Russia? When access to audiences, writers, and source material narrows so suddenly, how does our grasp of Russia change? To explore these issues, The Naked Pravda turned to Olga Irisova, a German Chancellor fellow at the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the editor-in-chief of the analytical platform Riddle, which the Russian authorities recently banned as an “undesirable organization.” Timestamps for this episode: (4:12) What is Riddle? (7:25) How has the war in Ukraine and “undesirable” status affected Riddle’s work? (14:30) Has Riddle faced any pressure from Westerners? (20:37) The current state of Russia expertise (25:16) Are there major differences between the Russia expertise generated by Russians and foreigners? (29:40) What makes a good essay?

In a guest essay this week for Meduza, philologist Gasan Gusejnov reflected on the experiences of past “waves” of Russian emigrants and on today’s interactions between the Russian-speaking diaspora and Russian-speaking Ukrainians, explaining how the Putin regime has abused the Russian language by elevating “hateful violence.” Gusejnov also described the “taste for language resistance” developing among younger Russian-speakers as efforts abroad to challenge the Kremlin’s grip on speech accelerate. On this week’s episode of The Naked Pravda, host Kevin Rothrock and guest Dr. Gusejnov further discuss the social and political state of the Russian language at home and abroad, today and in the years to come.

A couple of months ago, videos from Russian prisons started appearing online showing a beefy-looking, bald man addressing large crowds of inmates, trying to recruit them as mercenaries to go fight (and quite possibly die, he admitted) in Ukraine. “Do you have anybody who can pull you out of the slammer when you’ve still got 10 years on your sentence? There are two who can get you out: Allah and God, and it will be in a wooden box. I’ll take you alive, though I won’t always return you that way.” He then gives the prisoners five minutes to decide if they’ll join his private military company. The man speaking here is Evgeny Prigozhin, an ex-con himself and now a jack of all trades when it comes to the dark side of the Russian elite. He’s known as Vladimir Putin’s favorite chef, a restauranteur from St. Petersburg who caters for the president and supplies food to the military and many public schools. He operates so-called “troll farms” and an empire of fake news outlets that he now openly admits were created to meddle in politics, particularly in the United States. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (not just this February but all the way back to the start in 2014), Prigozhin’s most important dirty work for the Kremlin has been through his mercenary group Wagner. For a better understanding of Evgeny Prigozhin’s current significance as a public figure in Russia, The Naked Pravda spoke to five journalists and experts. Timestamps for this episode: (3:40) Alexandra Prokopenko (11:58) Roman Badanin (18:24) John Lechner (33:50) Roman Dobrokhotov (42:37) Liza Fokht

It’s been more than 266 days since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. In more recent few months, the war’s momentum has swung dramatically in Kyiv’s favor amid a Ukrainian counteroffensive that has Russian troops retreating from areas that Moscow has formally annexed. To get a grasp on where things stand currently in the war, Meduza spoke to military analyst Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), who’s been meticulously gathering operational data about the conflict since before Russian troops started pouring over the Ukrainian border. Timestamps for this episode: (2:38) What’s so special about HIMARS, or High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems? (10:22) What other advanced weapons could give Ukraine new advantages in the war? (14:57) What’s the military impact of Russia’s airstrikes against Ukraine’s critical infrastructure? (18:57) How far might Ukraine’s counteroffensive reach into occupied territory? Will Russian defenses hold at some point? (25:19) Is the Russian military regrouping or on the verge of collapse? (27:41) What happened with the missile(s) that recently killed two civilians in Poland? (30:26) Is Russia going to run out of rockets or ammunition?

It’s an exaggeration to say that Russian aviation has been cut off from the outside world, but the loss of routes to popular Western destinations has squeezed airlines profits while sanctions complicate basic maintenance. In late July, for example, several Russian airlines reportedly advised pilots, not to use their brakes so much when landing, in order to extend the equipment’s lifespan. To keep its fleets in the air, Russia must now rely chiefly on repairing planes using spare parts from other aircraft. The country already operates a policy charmingly known as cannibalization. The Naked Pravda spoke to two experts to find out more about the risks of safety lapses in Russia’s aviation industry amid international sanctions that could soon jeopardize domestic commercial air travel. Timestamps for this episode: (4:28) Richard Aboulafia, managing director at AeroDynamic Advisory (19:38) Dr. Pavel Luzin, visiting scholar at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University

On October 23, following a report in Russia’s state news, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu started calling his counterparts in France, Turkey, the UK, and the United States, warning that Moscow has collected intelligence suggesting that the Ukrainian government is preparing a “provocation” involving the use of a dirty bomb. A day later, Russia’s Foreign Ministry claimed that Kyiv plans to “camouflage” an explosion of “the radioactive substances derived from the spent nuclear fuel storages of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant” as the effects of a “low-power Russian nuclear warhead that contains highly enriched uranium in its charge,” supposedly framing Moscow for using tactical nukes. At Kyiv’s own request, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog has already begun inspections to investigate Russia’s claims, but the Kremlin has pressed on, undeterred. On October 27, Vladimir Putin said again that the Ukrainian government is “preparing an incident with a so-called dirty bomb” with plans to accuse Russia of using a nuclear weapon. To understand what radiological weapons actually are and what their use would mean in Ukraine, The Naked Pravda turned to three experts. Timestamps for this episode: (3:39) Dr. Andrey Baklitskiy, a senior researcher in the Weapons of Mass Destruction and other Strategic Weapons Program at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research, compares Moscow’s “dirty bomb” allegations to past claims about U.S. bioweapons on Ukrainian soil. (15:08) Dr. Nicole Grajewski, a Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow with the Belfer Center’s Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard’s Kennedy School, describes how Russian warnings about Ukrainian radiological weaponry mimic past accusations against the White Helmets in Syria. (25:21) Sarah Bidgood, the director of the Eurasia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, explains the rise and demise of state-level radiological weapons programs.

Now that Vladimir Putin is 70 years old, we’re understandably getting less of his torso in official photographs, but the Kremlin nevertheless relies on tropes of masculinity to validate the regime and its actions abroad, particularly in Ukraine and when it comes to confrontation with the West. This gendered rhetoric resonates with Russians just as it does in societies and nations all over the world. The authorities and the public work together to manufacture consensus about who gets to be on top, who constitutes a threat, and what actions are legitimate. When it comes to the invasion of Ukraine, for example, the promotion and draw of various anti-feminism and anti-gay narratives in Russia have facilitated the idea itself that an independent, Western-leaning Ukraine poses an existential threat. This language has helped make plausible for Russians a war that was inconceivable until only recently. But what happens if you take away that rhetoric? Without gender’s role in influencing Russia’s securitization process, what’s left of Moscow’s justifications for war? These are questions inspired by a new article titled “Damsels in Distress: Fragile Masculinity in Digital War,” published in the academic journal Media, War & Conflict and written by Dr. Lisa Gaufman, an assistant professor of Russian Discourse and Politics at the University of Groningen. Also the author of “Security Threats and Public Perception: Digital Russia and the Ukraine Crisis” (2017) and the forthcoming “Everyday Foreign Policy: Performing and Consuming the Russian Nation after Crimea,” Dr. Gaufman joined The Naked Pravda to discuss her work.

On Tuesday, November 8, the U.S. is holding midterm elections — all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate will be contested, in addition to gubernatorial races in 39 states and territories. In all this politicking, mainstream support for Ukraine remains strong, but it was only a few years ago when Donald Trump declared at his inauguration: “We assembled here today our issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital, and in every hall of power, from this day forward: a new vision will govern our land, from this day forward, it’s going to be only America first. America first.” 74.2 million Americans voted for Trump, just two years ago, even after the U.S. House of Representatives impeached him for withholding military aid to Kyiv in order to influence Ukraine to announce an investigation into Joe Biden and to promote a discredited conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, was behind interference in the 2016 presidential election. So, what happens to American support for Ukraine if U.S. partisan politics shift again? Timestamps for this episode: (4:48) Aaron Schwartzbaum, fellow in the FPRI Eurasia Program, founder of the FPRI’s BMB Russia newsletter, and host of the podcast “The Continent” (19:06) Dr. Volodymyr Dubovyk, associate professor in Department of International Relations at Mechnikov National University in Odesa, where he’s also the director of the Center for International Studies. Currently a visiting professor at Tufts University in Massachusetts.

The Chinese government has consistently threatened to take Taiwan by force if the government there declares formal independence. American politician Nancy Pelosi completed a two-day trip to Taiwan in early August, enraging Beijing, raising regional tensions, and thrilling Russian state propagandists, who are clearly desperate to draw the two most powerful countries on Earth into a shooting war that would presumably weaken Western resolve to counter Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Two months after Pelosi’s visit, fears of a war over Taiwan have receded, but the conflict could flare up again at any time, raising questions about what might happen if fighting does break out over the island. And if China invaded Taiwan, what would it mean for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? For answers, The Naked Pravda spoke to two regional experts. Timestamps: (6:49) Dr. Sergey Radchenko, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (18:24) Dr. Natasha Kuhrt, senior lecturer in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London

When announcing a draft to reinforce Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin accused the West of “nuclear blackmail,” claiming that “high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO countries” have endorsed the “possibility and admissibility” of using nuclear weapons against Russia. In the same remarks, Putin vowed to use “all available weapon systems” to defend Russia’s “territorial integrity” — a precarious position now that Moscow has annexed four more Ukrainian regions without even controlling the territories militarily. In his annexation speech on September 30, Putin focused mainly on the evils of the West: centuries of European colonialism, decades of American militarism, progressive values that he described as Satanism, and what he called the U.S.-created precedent of twice attacking Japanese cities with nuclear bombs. Considering that the Kremlin has repeatedly described its victory in Ukraine as essential to Russia’s existence, there are rising concerns about how the Putin regime will respond if its troops continue to lose ground in the war. Will he order a nuclear strike? The Naked Pravda asked two experts in nuclear weapon strategy and nuclear crises. Timestamps: (3:52) Dr. Olga Oliker, program director for Europe and Central Asia at the International Crisis Group in Brussels and cohost of the podcast “War & Peace“ (16:18) Dr. Mariana Budjeryn, senior research associate with the Project on Managing the Atom at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center and author of the forthcoming book “Inheriting the Bomb: The Collapse of the USSR and the Nuclear Disarmament of Ukraine”

As acting president, elected president, prime minister, and then president again, Vladimir Putin has now ruled Russia for almost 23 years. And it doesn’t look like he plans to retire any time soon. Following amendments to the Russian constitution in 2020, Putin is now able to run in two more presidential elections. This means he could potentially remain in power until 2036, at which point he’ll be turning 83.  Putin is indeed getting old, and ever since he ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February, there's been a lot of speculation about his future. With his seventieth birthday coming up on October 7, reports and rumors about the state of Putin’s health abound. But death by old age is probably years (if not decades) away for a man whose physical survival is one of Russia’s greatest national security priorities. Of course, no one lives forever, and just like Mikhail Gorbachev and Queen Elizabeth II, Vladimir Putin will one day pass away. But what if he dies suddenly, while still in office? What happens then? The Naked Pravda turns to three experts for insights into the potential domestic and global consequences of Putin’s death. Timestamps for this episode: (6:08) Fabian Burkhardt, a post-doctoral Research Associate at the Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies, on how Putin’s death would impact Russia’s domestic politics — and political elites — in the short term.  (16:04) Ronald Grigor Suny, the William H. Sewell Jr. Distinguished University Professor of History and a Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, on the death of Stalin and the Soviet Union’s transfer of power problem.  (25:06) Domitilla Sagramoso, Senior Lecturer in Security and Development in the Department of War Studies at King's College London, on Putin’s foreign policy legacy and what it means for the future trajectory of Russia’s relations with the wider world. 

Meduza’s only English-language podcast, The Naked Pravda, returns for a third season tomorrow on Friday, September 23. Throughout the new season, each show explores a hypothetical event and its potential consequences for Russia and its relationship with the rest of the world. On upcoming episodes, Meduza asks journalists, scholars, and other experts about the context and possibilities behind the questions that keep people up at night: What if Putin dies tomorrow? What happens to the Ukraine war if China invades Taiwan? What if sanctions against Russian commercial aviation lead to a disaster in the air? What happens to Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov if Russia loses in Ukraine? The Naked Pravda’s “What If?” season is all about the big and unanswerable questions that animate the public’s interest in news stories and tease our imagination about what comes next. The first episode will be available tomorrow.

Meduza welcomes European Council on Foreign Relations Senior Policy Fellow Kadri Liik for a discussion about her recent article, “Putin’s Archaic War: Russia’s Newly Outlawed Professional Class – And How It Could One Day Return,” where she argues that the invasion of Ukraine is “effectively de-modernizing Russia” and derailing processes that could have put the country on a less aggressive, more professional path. A specialist in Russian domestic and foreign policy and in relations between Russia and the West, Liik joined The Naked Pravda to address the issues she raised in her essay. Timestamps for this episode: (2:07) How does the invasion of Ukraine trigger the “de-modernization” of Russian society and foreign policy? (4:36) How does Soviet foreign policy compare to the diplomacy Moscow practiced before and since launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine? (5:58) What are the “modern” aspects of Russia’s recent and current foreign policy in Syria and Africa? (9:14) How long will the war’s de-modernization plague Russian society and policymaking? (11:23) To what degree is Russia now “de-modernized” and ostracized globally (not just in the West)? (15:00) What will it take for the West to come to a consensus with the Global South about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? (16:47) How does the “decolonization” debate in Western academia and activism fit into all this? Does this perspective have traction inside Russia? (21:46) What are the “needs” that fueled Russia’s “homegrown” democratization potential before the February invasion?

After Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, five Hollywood giants — Disney, Warner Bros, Universal, Sony Pictures, and Paramount — all stopped releasing new films in Russia. Netflix, which was producing multiple shows in Russia for the domestic market, has also suspended all service there. Amazon Prime has halted streaming in Russia, too. All this comes just as the entertainment industry was hoping to rebound from two years of pandemic shutdowns and concerns. Russian movie theaters are now on the verge of collapse, and the country’s streaming services — seemingly poised for a major expansion before the war — are scrambling to keep subscribers by restocking their catalogues and hoping for success with original programming. To find out where Russians will find their future entertainment, Meduza turned to three experts in the nation’s television and film industries. Timestamps for this episode: (2:48) AR Content Creative Executive Ivan Philippov breaks down what trends in Russian entertainment (9:01) Kinopoisk podcast host and former editor-in-chief Lisa Surganova explains the current state of Russia’s streaming services (16:00) Filmmaker and film and television researcher Egor Isaev weighs the loss of coproduction deals with Hollywood studios and U.S. streaming services (23:02) Surganova explains how TV and cinema funding work in Russia (29:14) Philippov looks at the struggling movie business from the Kremlin’s perspective

Earlier this week, the European Union passed a landmark agreement banning most Russian oil imports into the region by the end of the year, though the embargo features a temporary exemption for imports delivered by pipeline in order to overcome opposition from landlocked Hungary. In late May, the U.S. Treasury declined to extend a license that allowed Russia to make payment on its sovereign debt to U.S. holders, possibly accelerating the prospect of Russia defaulting on its government debt. To discuss these major developments and more happening in the sanctions campaign against Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine, The Naked Pravda welcomed back Dr. Maria Shagina, a political risk analyst and sanctions expert who works as a Diamond-Brown Research Fellow for Economic Sanctions, Standards, and Strategy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Timestamps for this episode: (1:48) What’s the significance of Russia’s current account surplus? (6:15) Has Western unity on economic sanctions against Russia peaked, or is the EU and U.S. capable of more? (7:52) What determines the divisions inside the European Union when it comes to confronting Russian aggression? (11:11) What are the main drivers of a potential global food crisis? (12:28) Does the West risk alienating large parts of the world by forcing higher energy costs on the Global South? (19:05) How have the sanctions against Russia affected the push for greener energy sources? (23:25) Have economic realities now put Russia definitively on an eastward trajectory? How fundamental is this to the country’s future development?

Through speeches by political leaders and in television broadcasts that have blanketed the country (as well as new territories recently seized by force), the Kremlin has argued breathlessly that Ukrainian statehood is a historical accident weaponized by Russia’s enemies. This rhetoric, which essentially denies the existence of an independent Ukranian identity, has reached not only millions of civilians but also the Russian troops now in Ukraine, where journalists, the local authorities, and international observers have been documenting and cataloging these soldiers’ acts of violence against noncombatants. As the world learns more about the atrocities committed against the Ukrainian people, Ukrainian law enforcement and officials throughout the West have begun the process of investigating, designating, and prosecuting these acts. For a better understanding of this work and its challenges, The Naked Pravda spoke to four experts about war atrocities in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, focusing particularly on genocide as it’s understood both legally and in terms of history and politics. The scholars who joined this discussion: Erin Farrell Rosenberg, an adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Law, and an attorney specializing in international criminal law and reparations Eugene Finkel, an associate professor of international affairs at Johns Hopkins University, and the author of “Ordinary Jews: Choice and Survival during the Holocaust” Dirk Moses, a professor of Global Human Rights History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the author of “The Problems of Genocide: Permanent Security and the Language of Transgression,” and the senior editor of the “Journal of Genocide Research” Maria Varaki, a lecturer in international law at the War Studies Department at King’s College London, and the co-director of the War Crimes Research Group Timestamps for the main sections of this episode: (4:15) The legal terms used to designate mass violence and crimes in warfare, and genocide’s special legacy (36:11) How war crimes and genocide are prosecuted, establishing genocidal intent, and upholding justice (1:04:21) The politics of genocide allegations, and the consequences of taking them seriously

The past nine weeks of all-out war have completely upended civilian life throughout Ukraine. After withdrawing from around Kyiv and Chernihiv in late March, Russian forces are ostensibly refocusing their invasion on taking Ukraine’s eastern and southern regions. With many cities, towns, and villages already in dire humanitarian situations, civilians living in these areas are faced with the difficult choice of attempting to evacuate or bracing themselves for an escalated offensive. Meanwhile, residents of the Kyiv region are clearing the wreckage Russian forces left behind and trying to adjust to a “new normal.” For insight into civilian life in some of Ukraine’s most wartorn areas, Meduza turned to two Ukrainian experts who have been reporting on the ground throughout the war.  Timestamps for this episode: (1:38) Maria Avdeeva, research director at the European Expert Association, on documenting Russian war crimes to combat disinformation and the critical humanitarian situation in Kharkiv.  (12:30) Journalist and Public Interest Journalism Lab co-founder Nataliya Gumenyuk on the atmosphere in Kyiv, how local leaders and civilian volunteers keep Ukrainian towns running, and the humanitarian situation in Ukraine’s eastern and southern regions.  (23:45) Avdeeva on why the local government in Kharkiv is clearing debris and planting flowers while still under attack.  (25:42) Avdeeva and Gumenyuk on rebuilding Ukraine after — and during — the war.  (31:00) Gumenyuk on what makes reporting on this war different and what she wants international audiences to know about Ukraine.

The Russian North Caucasus has played a special role in the invasion of Ukraine. Journalists estimate that at least 60 men from Dagestan died fighting for Russia by March 23, indicating that this republic had lost more soldiers, by far, than any other region in Russia. In terms of public messaging, Chechen ruler Ramzan Kadyrov has been one of the loudest cheerleaders for the “special operation,” rattling his saber at every opportunity and declaring the seizure of Ukrainian territories before it’s actually happened. Across the North Caucasus, one of the most crucial factors when it comes to military service is the absence of alternatives. Unemployment is higher in this region than anywhere else in Russia. It’s the highest of all in Ingushetia, where it exceeds 30 percent. To find out more about the war’s impact here, The Naked Pravda turned to Ingush journalist and activist Izabella Evloeva and independent political and security analyst Harold Chambers. (Also, Meduza extends a special thanks to journalist Katie Marie Davies for her assistance with dubbing parts of this episode.) Timestamps for this episode: (3:26) How does unemployment affect support for the war? (4:37 and 9:15) How regional leaders have responded to the invasion (6:39) The felony “disinformation” case against Izabella Evloeva (11:11) The colonial relationship between Russia and Ingushetia (12:13) Popular attitudes about the war (13:54) Could the war go so badly for Russia that it creates unrest back home? (15:00) Ramzan Kadyrov’s changing public image

Following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian authorities imposed military censorship in all but name, annihilating the entire domestic free press. Within a week of Moscow’s “special operation in the Donbas,” the television station Dozhd and radio station Ekho Moskvy both shut down, ending 12 and 32 years, respectively, of independent journalism. In late March, after a 28-year run, the newspaper Novaya Gazeta suspended all reporting until the end of the war, citing warnings from the federal censor. Many of the journalists who worked for these outlets have already fled Russia, but they continue their work at new platforms, on their own channels at YouTube, Telegram, and elsewhere. For a better understanding of this new guerilla reporting, The Naked Pravda spoke to two independent journalists now operating from outside Russia to find out how they’re managing this job: Farida Rustamova (who uses Telegram and Substack) and Ekaterina Kotrikadze (on Telegram and YouTube). Timestamps for this episode: (2:43) Did Russian independent journalists lose the fight against Kremlin propaganda? (10:23) How has military censorship damaged the quality of reporting and information available from Russia? (18:55) Rustamova’s path to Substack. (26:52) Kotrikadze on TV Rain’s plans for the future. (36:23) Did Kotrikadze see the full-scale invasion coming?

This week’s guest is Meduza special correspondent Lilya Yapparova, who just spent several days in Chernihiv, reporting on how the Russian invasion has destroyed local families and upended residents’ lives. She managed to leave the city just before Russian troops besieged it again. Now back in Kyiv, still reporting on the war, Lilya joined the podcast to talk about her latest article, “‘Mom, please make it stop’: Meduza special correspondent Lilia Yapparova was in Chernihiv in the final days before Russian troops cut it off from the outside world. Here’s what she saw.” Timestamps for this episode (4:37) What would you ask Zelensky or Putin? (8:39) On the nature of war reporting (10:55) How does a journalist engage people who are caught in the horrors of war? What was it like to visit Chernihiv and report on events there? (15:47) Do Ukrainians treat Russian journalists as “aggressors”? Is there anti-Russian hostility from ordinary Ukrainians? (18:17) The return of the barter economy, and the greatest true romance story ever told (21:38) What are some of the internal conflicts among the Ukrainians defending the cities now under Russian onslaught? (26:14) Will Ukrainians ever forgive the Russian people for this war?

We’re now more than three weeks deep into Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and many are asking the question: What information is still reaching Russians? Unless you’re using a VPN to tunnel beneath the state’s censorship, Instagram is blocked, Facebook is blocked, Twitter is blocked, and YouTube is probably next. The independent news media is in tatters, and it looks like the main social networks left standing will be domestic services like Odnoklassniki and Vkontakte, which enforce the Kremlin’s political censorship — and then there’s Telegram. For a better understanding of what this means for Russia’s information space — focusing particularly on Russians’ increased reliance on Telegram — The Naked Pravda welcomes back Dr. Tanya Lokot, an associate professor in Digital Media and Society at the School of Communications at Dublin City University in Ireland, and Dr. Mariëlle Wijermars, an assistant professor in Cyber-Security and Politics at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. The two scholars recently coauthored an article published in the journal Post-Soviet Affairs, titled, “Is Telegram a ‘Harbinger of Freedom’? The Performance, Practices, and Perception of Platforms as Political Actors in Authoritarian States.” Timestamps for this episode: (4:02) Is Telegram a “harbinger of freedom”? (5:05) How does Telegram’s lack of moderation potentially endanger vulnerable groups? (8:10) How vulnerable are Telegram users to government snooping? (11:06) Why do users stick with Telegram if there are serious security concerns about the service? (13:16) On Telegram head Pavel Durov’s mixed messages in Ukraine (17:30) Are the U.S. social media giants any better? (20:32) Revisiting Telegram during the 2020–2021 Belarusian protests (21:11) What content is available on Telegram during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? (26:36) That year between 2018 and 2019 when Russia “blocked” Telegram (31:10) What’s next for the RuNet?

In the days since Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Western world has imposed crippling economic sanctions on Russia designed to force extreme costs on the Kremlin for its aggression. In the Biden administration’s words, the measures will “weaken the Russian defense sector and its military power for years to come and target Russia’s most important sources of wealth.” Russian economy expert and Foreign Policy Research Institute fellow Maximilian Hess says he worries that the looming financial collapse in Moscow could resemble 1918 more than the 1990s. He joins this week’s episode of The Naked Pravda to explain what he means. Timestamps for this episode: (4:25) How bad could this get? (8:03) Floating currency and frozen stock trading (11:01) The return of a planned economy? (12:41) Shortages of critical products (15:32) What’s the message behind the sanctions? (19:58) Russia’s retaliatory options

On February 21, Vladimir Putin delivered a nearly hour-long televised lecture on Soviet history, describing what he clearly believes are the flimsy foundations of Ukrainian statehood and arguing that the government in Kyiv owes its territory today to the supposed generosity of the Bolsheviks, particularly Vladimir Lenin. To assess this presentation of Ukrainian and Soviet history, Meduza spoke to Dr. Faith Hillis, a professor of Russian history at the University of Chicago, where she specializes in 19th and 20th century politics, culture, and ideas, exploring specifically how Russia's peculiar political institutions — and its status as a multiethnic empire — shaped public opinion and political cultures. Her most recent book, “Utopia’s Discontents: Russian Exiles and the Quest for Freedom, 1830–1930,” is the first synthetic history of the Russian revolutionary emigration before the revolution of 1917. Timestamps for this episode: (3:21) Why history is almost irrelevant to what is happening on the ground in Ukraine today (7:57) Moscow’s “gifts” to Ukraine (12:08) How the Bolsheviks reconstituted the empire (19:08) Ukrainian civic identity and “code-switching”

Meduza spoke to the two hosts of a special project organized by the Monterey Initiative in Russian Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. In roughly 16 hours of interviews, “The Ambassadorial Series” features in-depth conversations with eight of the living former U.S. ambassadors to Russia and the Soviet Union, each featuring personal reflections and recollections on high-stakes negotiations, as well as discussions about a range of geopolitical issues that still dog today’s relations between Moscow and Washington. The Naked Pravda asked the two women who hosted the interviews, Jill Dougherty (an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, a fellow at the Wilson Center, and CNN’s former Moscow bureau chief) and Dr. Hanna Notte (a senior research associate at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non‑Proliferation), what they learned from talking to the ambassadors who represented America in Moscow over the past three decades. Timestamps for this week’s episode: (3:06) How “The Ambassadorial Series” came together. (4:49) What sets apart 1990s U.S.-Russian diplomacy. (11:39) Key inflection points over the past 30 years. (18:45) Lessons that stand out in U.S. ambassadors’ recollections. (23:00) The death and rebirth of Kremlinology in the Information Age.

Three decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Eastern European breakaway states of Transnistria, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia exist in a sort of geopolitical limbo. Born out of wars that ended in deadlocks in the early 1990s, these self-governing regions remain unrecognized by most of the world and dependent on Russia’s backing. This isolation presents a unique set of challenges for cultural creatives living and working in these regions, as well as for journalists trying to help them tell their stories to the wider world. To find out more about the evolving contemporary cultures of Transnistria, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia, The Naked Pravda turns to Calvert Journal features editor Katie Marie Davies.  Timestamps for this week’s episode: (2:19) Summarizing recent analysis and expert opinions from Michael Kofman, Leonid Bershidsky, Fyodor Lukyanov, Andrey Kortunov, Alexander Baunov, and Vladimir Denisov. (7:11) The Kadyrov regime’s war on the Yangulbayev family in Chechnya. (9:18) A new documentary film about Alexey Navalny, and Russia’s continued crackdown on the imprisoned opposition leader’s anti-corruption movement. (10:47) After German regulators pull the plug on Russia Today, Moscow responds by kicking out Deutsche Welle. (12:02) Calvert Journal features editor Katie Marie Davies discusses the challenges faced by creatives building new cultures in Eastern Europe’s breakaway states. 

January 2022 kicked off with a flurry of tense diplomatic talks between Russian and Western officials. Moscow is seeking wide-ranging security guarantees in Europe, while simultaneously massing upwards of 100,000 troops along its Western border. The buildup has provoked international concern that Russia plans to escalate the long-simmering conflict in the Donbas into a full-fledged war, leaving the United States and NATO scrambling to deter a potential re-invasion of Ukraine.  With both Russia and Ukraine making international headlines daily, and the conflict in the Donbas entering its eighth year, Meduza speaks to two journalists, one in Ukraine and the other in Russia, about how ordinary people in these two countries view the prospect of an all-out war. Timestamps for this week’s episode: (2:29) Journalist and media manager Angelina Karyakina, head of news at UA:PBC and co-founder of the Public Interest Journalism Lab, answers questions about the mood on the ground in Ukraine amid the looming threat of increased Russian aggression. (19:36) Moscow-based freelance journalist Uliana Pavlova discusses her experience reporting on the complex question of how the Russian population views the Kremlin’s brinkmanship. 

In the past two weeks, Russia has demonstrated its capacity to project military power at different corners of its periphery, sending troops to Kazakhstan for a small but symbolic peacekeeping operation and pressing sweeping security demands in Europe, where the West has accused the Kremlin of plotting a war of aggression against Ukraine. The Naked Pravda reviews three essays by political analysts in Russia about the nation’s evolving geopolitics and speaks to two experts about the events in Kazakhstan and changing dialogue between Moscow and Washington. Timestamps for this week’s episode: (5:22) Reviewing National Research University Higher School of Economics International Relations deputy director Dmitry Novikov’s January 9, 2022, essay on how many in Moscow already see Joe Biden as a lame duck president. (6:44) Reviewing Russian International Affairs Council director-general Andrey Kortunov’s January 4, 2022, essay about the fundamental “discrepancies” today between Russian and Western worldviews. (9:24) Reviewing PIR-Center consultant Alexander Kolbin’s January 12, 2022, essay on Russia’s struggle against “self-censorship” and fight for a “legitimate basis” for its own “cultural, economic, and military expansion.” (13:09) EurasiaNet Central Asia editor Peter Leonard answers questions about the CSTO peacekeeping mission in Kazakhstan and about how the nation’s political system compares to Russia’s. (25:44) Russia in Global Affairs editor-in-chief Fyodor Lukyanov discusses the logic behind Moscow’s grievances in Europe and the tensions still escalating in Ukraine.

On this week’s show, The Naked Pravda looks back at some of the journalism and scholarly work in 2021 that made significant contributions to our knowledge about Russia. These nine articles feature incredible fieldwork, insights into how power works in Russia, and compelling stories that you might have missed over the year. Meduza spoke to the authors of three of these articles — Julia Ioffe, Pjotr Sauer, and Maria Danilova — and we asked historian Sean Guillory of The SRB Podcast for his five favorite scholarly books on Russia and the Soviet Union released in 2021. Timestamps for this week’s episode: (3:15) “A Black Communist’s Disappearance in Stalin’s Russia: What Happened to Lovett Fort-Whiteman, the Only Known African American to Die in the Gulag?” by Joshua Yaffa (The New Yorker) (6:25) “Climate Change Is Melting Russia’s Permafrost — and Challenging Its Oil Economy” by Ann Simmons and Georgi Kantchev (The Wall Street Journal) (8:58) “On a Pacific Island, Russia Tests Its Battle Plan for Climate Change” by Anton Troianovski (The New York Times) (11:51) “The Great Russian Oil Heist: Criminals, Lawmen, and the Quest for Liquid Loot” by Sergei Khazov-Cassia (RFE/RL) (15:47) “Inside Wagnergate: Ukraine’s Brazen Sting Operation to Snare Russian Mercenaries” by Christo Grozev, with contributions from Aric Toler, Pieter van Huis, and Yordan Tsalov (Bellingcat) (21:48) “Lyubov Sobol’s Hope for Russia” by Masha Gessen (The New Yorker) (28:05) Meduza speaks to Julia Ioffe about her story, “‘These Bastards Will Never See Our Tears’: How Yulia Navalnaya Became Russia’s Real First Lady” (Vanity Fair) (45:22) Meduza talks to Pjotr Sauer about his investigation, “A Royal Mark Up: How an Emirati Sheikh Resells Millions of Russian Vaccines to the Developing World,” coauthored with Jake Cordell and Felix Light (The Moscow Times) (54:07) Meduza asks Maria Danilova about her report, “Russia Has an Opioid Crisis Too — One of Untreated Pain” (Vice) (1:04:11) Sean Guillory discusses “Cold War Correspondents: Soviet and American Reporters on the Ideological Frontlines” by Dina Fainberg (1:10:09) Sean talks about “Utopia’s Discontents: Russian Émigrés and the Quest for Freedom, 1830s-1930s” by Faith Hillis (1:14:05) Sean recommends “Navalny: Putin’s Nemesis, Russia’s Future?” by Jan Matti Dollbaum, Morvan Lallouet, and Ben Noble. (1:18:32) Sean recalls why he loved “Flowers Through Concrete: Explorations in Soviet Hippieland” by Juliane Fürst (1:22:05) Sean ends his list with “The Things of Life: Materiality in Late Soviet Russia” by Alexey Golubev (1:24:03) Closing remarks and a reminder to contribute to Meduza if you’re not already doing so! “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Saturdays (or sometimes Fridays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

The lawyers and journalists who worked with the Team 29 project specialized in Russia’s most hopeless political prosecutions — the treason case against journalist Ivan Safronov, the extremism charges against Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption movement, and dozens more indictments all but doomed to convictions. Earlier this year, the project was forced to disband after Russia’s federal censor started blocking its website. In November 2021, the Justice Ministry designated Team 29’s former members as “foreign agents” and many of those people subsequently fled the country. Valeria Vetoshkina, today’s guest on The Naked Pravda, is one of those people.  Timestamps for this week’s episode: (0:00) Filmmaker Alexander Sokurov lectures Vladimir Putin about Russia’s “constitutional crisis” (4:23) Analysts and experts battle in op-ed columns and online over the right strategy in Ukraine (6:46) Moving closer into the Kremlin’s orbit than ever, the social network Vkontakte gets new owners (11:02) The head of Russia’s Federal Investigative Committee has no sense of humor and no patience for exoneration (13:21) Human rights lawyer Valeria Vetoshkina, a former member of the now dissolved Team 29 project, describes her education in law school and the state of her field in Russia today “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Saturdays (or sometimes Fridays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

Earlier this week, events in space flirted with a real-life adaptation of Alfonso Cuarón’s 2013 motion picture “Gravity” when the Russian military blew up an inoperative Soviet satellite that had been orbiting the Earth since the early 1980s. Moscow insists that the debris didn’t get within 40 kilometers (25 miles) of the International Space Station, but NASA says the astronauts and cosmonauts aboard ISS were awakened early and ordered to retreat to their docked spacecraft in case an impact prompted an evacuation. U.S. officials say they’ve tracked 1,500 pieces of orbital debris caused by the Soviet satellite’s destruction, but there are likely “hundreds of thousands” more smaller pieces that also endanger anything or anyone in their path. According to NASA, this trash will circle the Earth for decades, posing a constant threat to the operations of all spacefaring nations. Russia says the Americans are a bunch of hypocrites. To shed some light on Russia’s weapons test, independent analyst and disarmament expert Pavel Podvig to returns to The Naked Pravda. Timestamps for this week’s episode: (6:09) Standup comedy in Russia: reviewing Denis Chuzhoi’s new special, and Vera Kotelnikova weighs the usefulness of speaking up for persecuted colleagues (10:17) Corruption news: Crimea arrests its potty-mouthed culture minister, Mediazona investigates two possibly wrongfully jailed police officers outside Rostov, and Novaya Gazeta unearths an honest judge in Chelyabinsk (13:47) Pavel Podvig joins the show “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Saturdays (or sometimes Fridays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

Our main story this week is Russia’s place in Europe’s energy crisis. Political risk analyst Nick Trickett, the author of the OGs and OFZs newsletter, joins the podcast to explain what consumers want from Moscow, why being a “swing producer” is inherently political, and how inflation endangers ordinary Russians. Timestamps for this week’s episode: (3:28) Law enforcement news: Hooded thugs disrupt a film screening at Memorial, and police arrest a prominent university administrator (9:46) Culture wars: Parents in St. Petersberg oust a biology teacher for using Instagram to share sex ed, and comedians in North Ossetia apologize in tears for a suggestive joke about “thigh pie” (13:48) Nick Trickett breaks down Russia’s place in Europe’s energy crisis, focusing on gas deals and inflation “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Saturdays (or sometimes Fridays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

Our main story this week is the treason case against Ilya Sachkov, the 35-year-old CEO of the cybersecurity firm Group-IB. On Wednesday morning, September 29, hours after officials raided the company’s Moscow office, a local court jailed Sachkov for the next two months, pending trial. That will likely be extended several times, as the authorities collect more evidence. The Naked Pravda explores why Sachkov may have been arrested and asks what his case means for Russia’s cybersecurity industry and Moscow’s troubled cooperation with the United States against cybercrime. Timestamps for this week’s episode: (2:12) Developments in Russia’s expanding regulation of “foreign agents” (7:57) A blogger’s scandalous offense, plus RT enlists the might of Russia’s federal censor in its battle with YouTube (13:00) Dr. Josephine Wolff, an associate professor of cybersecurity policy at the Tufts University Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (16:58) Dr. Julien Nocetti, an associate fellow at the French Institute of International Relations (19:45) RFE/RL journalist Mike Eckel “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Saturdays (or sometimes Fridays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

Earlier this month, Moscow was one of just a few regions in Russia to offer electronic voting in three-day parliamentary elections. In the capital, multiple opposition candidates led in-person voting but ultimately lost when electronic votes were added late to the final tallies. In the week since the voting ended, the campaign teams for several losing candidates have compiled and presented evidence that they say proves voter fraud in the online ballots.  The Naked Pravda returns for its second season with interviews featuring economist Dr. Tatiana Mikhailova and BBC Russia reporter Liza Fokht in an episode devoted to assessing the opposition’s claims of electronic voter fraud. The show begins with a roundup of news stories from the week (cases of censorship in Russia and commentary in the Russian media about life in the West). Dr. Mikhailova joins the podcast at 13:31 and Liza Fokht’s remarks begin at 22:32. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Saturdays (or sometimes Fridays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

Khalimat Taramova is only 22 years old, but she’s been through a lot, especially in the past two weeks. Kept under lock and key at home in Chechnya, her family beats her and even forced her to undergo so-called “conversion therapy.” Taramova identifies as bisexual. Last month, she reached out to a prominent LGBT rights group begging them to help her reach safety. On June 6, when she got to a women’s shelter in Dagestan, a couple of hours outside Chechnya, it seemed like she was finally safe. She wasn’t.  For a better understanding of Taramova’s case and its broader context in Chechnya, The Naked Pravda spoke to human rights professionals Veronika Lapina, executive advocacy and international litigation advisor to the Russian LGBT Network, and Vanessa Kogan, the director of the Russian Justice Initiative. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Saturdays (or sometimes Fridays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

Last week, investigative journalists at Meduza and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty revealed that a Russian marketing firm recently tried to recruit European bloggers in a secret media campaign to smear Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine. To find out more about these solicitations and to learn how this fits into Russian politics, The Naked Pravda spoke to Meduza investigations head Alexey Kovalev and RFE/RL journalists Mark Krutov and Carl Schreck. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Saturdays (or sometimes Fridays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

On May 13, a Ukrainian court placed pro-Kremlin oligarch and lawmaker Viktor Medvedchuk under round-the-clock house arrest pending trial for high treason. The country’s Prosecutor General had signed off on the charges two days earlier, indicting not only Medvedchuk, but also his closest ally and fellow lawmaker, Taras Kozak, in connection with three episodes of illegal activity.  Both politicians belong to Opposition Platform — For Life, a pro-Russian opposition party that holds 44 seats in the Ukrainian parliament. But Medvedchuk is perhaps best known for his murky business dealings and personal ties to Vladimir Putin (the Russian president is said to be the godfather of Medvedchuk’s youngest daughter).  The treason charges came a few months after the Ukrainian authorities imposed sanctions on Kozak and Medvedchuk for allegedly financing terrorism. As part of these sanctions, Kozak’s three pro-Russian television channels were taken off the air. The Ukrainian authorities also sanctioned Medvedchuk’s wife and froze the couples’ assets for three years. Medvedchuk has denied all of the allegations, claiming that the charges are politically motivated. That said, prosecuting Medvedchuk coincides with other steps the Ukrainian government is taking to combat corruption and oligarchic influence. Moreover, this is happening at a time when President Volodymyr Zelensky appears to be changing his stance on Russia and his approach to resolving the conflict with Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine’s east.  To discuss Viktor Medvedchuk’s Kremlin ties and his place in the Ukrainian political landscape, as well as what the Zelensky government is doing to combat oligarchic influence in Ukraine, “The Naked Pravda” turned to independent journalist and disinformation researcher Olga Tokariuk, a freelance correspondent in Kyiv for the Spanish EFE news agency. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Saturdays (or sometimes Fridays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

As you may have learned from the crowdfunding banners now adorning this website, the Russian authorities designated Meduza as a “foreign agent” on April 23. Our new status in Russia has chased away advertisers and deprived us of revenue, endangering Meduza’s continued existence. That’s the sad truth of our situation right now, but what does it mean to be a “foreign agent” in Russia? How does it change life and daily business for individuals, NGOs, and media outlets? Russian lawmakers argue that these regulations are Moscow’s response to similar rules and restrictions in the United States, but does that comparison stand up to scrutiny? To answer these questions and more, “The Naked Pravda” turned to Middlesex University London Associate Lecturer in Journalism Dr. Sasha Raspopina, Higher School of Economics Associate Professor Dr. Dmitry Dubrovsky, “Memorial” Human Rights Center lawyer Marina Agaltsova, and journalist Casey Michel, whose forthcoming book, “American Kleptocracy,” is due out this November. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Saturdays (or sometimes Fridays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

A lot has happened this month. On the world stage, Russia’s relations with the Czech Republic started unraveling on April 17, when officials in Prague accused Russian military intelligence agents of destroying ammunition depots seven years ago in explosions that killed two people. Three days before that bombshell dropped, police officers in Moscow raided the newsroom of the student journal Doxa, as well as the homes of four editors, who are now under house arrest, pending felony charges that could land them in prison for three years. Meanwhile, one of the biggest domestic news stories of the last week was Alexey Navalny’s hunger strike and his health status in prison. This week’s episode of “The Naked Pravda” takes on all three of these stories, turning to a different guest for each subject. Bellingcat Research and Training Director Aric Toler explains what we know, so far, about the Russian spies’ activities in the Czech Republic; Doxa editor Mstislav Grivachov describes what his student journal does and why the Moscow police have come for its staff; and Ksenia Runova, a junior researcher at the Institute for the Rule of Law at the European University at St. Petersburg, illustrates what it’s like to end up incarcerated in Russia. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Saturdays (or sometimes Fridays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

This week, the Biden administration rolled out the latest round of U.S. sanctions against Russia, slapping Moscow (yet again) with a series of targeted measures to punish the Kremlin for alleged election meddling, hacking, and military aggression. The U.S. Treasury Department identified a few dozen persons and entities, freezing any of their assets in the United States and banning Americans from doing business with them. Russia soon followed suit with its own set of countersanctions, while simultaneously launching an effort to liquidate Alexey Navalny’s nationwide anti-corruption apparatus. Acknowledging the diplomatic significance of these decisions, arguably the most important aspect of these new measures is the expansion of U.S. restrictions on the market for Russian sovereign debt. To find out exactly how American sanctions can affect Russia’s macroeconomic financial flows, “The Naked Pravda” turned to Maximilian Hess, a political risk expert and a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and Dr. Maria Shagina, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Eastern European Studies at the University of Zurich and a member of the Geneva International Sanctions Network at the Graduate Institute. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Saturdays (or sometimes Fridays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

Last month, the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences decided to withhold public access to new research on atmospheric and soil pollution in cities throughout the region. The discussion about burying the “alarmist” report was streamed on YouTube, however, and the academy’s effort to purge the footage from the Internet only drew the public’s attention. To try to understand why a group of prestigious scientists would question open-source data about pollution levels in Siberia, Meduza turned to science writer Elia Kabanov and physicist and environmentalist Yaroslav Nikitenko. (Please note that Nikitenko refers to the Russian Academy of Sciences at one point in the show as a federal agency. In fact, the academy is now a federal budget organization. Meduza apologizes for the confusion.) “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Saturdays (or sometimes Fridays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

When it comes to carrying out repressions, the Russian government’s reach isn’t limited by its own borders. The Kremlin is known for going after perceived enemies abroad — especially former “insiders” and members of the political opposition. In recent years, high-profile assassinations linked to Russian agents have made headlines around the world, and Moscow has developed a reputation for abusing the Interpol notice system. At the same time, those who flee Russia’s Chechen Republic are particularly at risk. Under regional leader Ramzan Kadyrov, this sub-national regime has carried out a unique and concerted campaign to control the Chechen diaspora. Moreover, asylum seekers from the Russian North Caucasus who seek refuge in European countries are now faced with rising xenophobia, as well as tightening migration policies that threaten to send them back to Russia. To find out more about how the Russian — and Chechen — authorities carry out repressive activities beyond Russia’s borders, “The Naked Pravda” spoke to Nate Schenkkan, director for research strategy at Freedom House, and Kateryna Sergatskova, the editor-in-chief of Zaborona Media. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Saturdays (or sometimes Fridays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

In an interview published on March 17, U.S. President Joe Biden said he considers Vladimir Putin to be a “killer,” prompting the Russian president to respond a day later with a schoolyard retort that translates loosely to the phrase: “Look who’s talking!” In what sounded more like a threat than a salutation, Putin also wished his American counterpart good health. Pretty strong language for the leaders of the two greatest nuclear powers on Earth! But how does this rhetoric compare to recent and Cold War history? Is this the worst thing an American president has ever said publicly about a Russian leader? If so, does that mean the relationship between Moscow and Washington has never been worse? How does it compare to the days when the United States and the Soviet Union used to point thousands of nukes at each other?  For answers, Meduza turned to Sergey Radchenko, a professor of international relations at Cardiff University and an expert in Soviet and Chinese foreign policies, atomic diplomacy, and the history of Cold War crises. Dr. Radchenko argues that things have certainly been worse between Russians and Americans, but politicians on both sides seem to have lost something that sustained smoother relations in those more troubled times. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Saturdays (or sometimes Fridays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

Russia and Twitter haven’t really gotten along for years now. In fact, since 2017, federal censors at Roskomnadzor (RKN) have filed more than 28,000 takedown requests with the social network, and the agency complains that Twitter still grants Russian users access to 3,168 of these materials containing supposedly illegal information. In retaliation against this insubordination, RKN started throttling local Twitter traffic on March 10, 2021, leveraging the country’s growing arsenal of deep-packet-inspection systems to reduce the bandwidth available to Twitter in Russia. The policy has failed to disrupt the service for many Russian users, however, adding to RKN’s list of unsuccessful censorship efforts against major foreign companies. For a better grasp of what happened and what went wrong, Meduza turned to Tanya Lokot, an associate professor in digital media and society at Dublin City University’s School of Communications, and Mariëlle Wijermars, an assistant professor in cyber-security and politics at Maastricht University and a visiting researcher at the University of Helsinki’s Aleksanteri Institute.

In a time when intergalactic superheroes dominate global box offices and capture the imaginations of millions of people around the world, what do we see when we look back at the science fiction of the Cold War? What is gained and what is obscured by comparing the films and literature created by the two superpowers of the early Space Age? And what did it feel like to watch those movies and read those books back then? What’s the legacy of these remarkable creations? To explore this subject and attempt some answers, “The Naked Pravda” turned to Anindita Banerjee, an associate professor of comparative literature at Cornell University, where she chairs the humanities concentration in the Environment and Sustainability Program and wears several other academic and administrative hats. Dr. Banerjee explained the pitfalls of Americans’ Hollywood obsession and described her own introduction to Alexander Belayev’s 1928 science fiction adventure novel, “Amphibian Man,” which Soviet filmmaker Vladimir Chebotaryov later adapted into the 1962 Soviet blockbuster motion picture. Journalist Slava Malamud, who’s entertained and educated mass audiences on Twitter with long threads about Soviet themes in cinema, also returns to the podcast to recall his experiences as a viewer of domestic and Hollywood sci-fi movies in the USSR in the 1980s. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Saturdays (or sometimes Fridays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

Belarus has seen ongoing protests since August 2020, when election officials declared that Alexander Lukashenko (Alyaksandr Lukashenka) had won his sixth consecutive presidential term. The mass demonstrations were met with a violent police crackdown, and several members of the opposition were thrown in prison. Pressure and threats from the authorities drove other opposition figures to flee the country, including Svetlana Tikhanovskaya (Svyatlana Tsikhanousakaya), who emerged as Lukashenko’s main political rival during the 2020 campaign season. Tikhanovskaya is now living in exile and leading the unified opposition from Lithuania, and her role both Belarusian and international politics has changed significantly in the last six months.  Back in Belarus, the authorities have been carrying out widespread repressions, targeting independent media and civil society organizations. At the same time, police brutality and the onset of winter has led opposition protesters to adopt new tactics for expressing their discontent. And although some analysts maintain that the opposition movement has stalled, others are predicting the return of large-scale demonstrations in the spring. To find out more about how the opposition movement in Belarus has evolved and how Lukashenko’s regime has managed to withstand six months of protests, “The Naked Pravda” talked to Belarusian journalist Hanna Liubakova, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank, and Maryia Rohava, a doctoral researcher at the University of Oslo, whose research focuses on symbolic politics and identity in post-Soviet autocracies. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Saturdays (or sometimes Fridays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden recently had their first presidential phone call — a conversation that paved the way for a renewal of the New START Treaty (the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty reached in April 2010 between presidents Obama and Medvedev). But most other arms control agreements between Moscow and Washington have expired or collapsed in years past, so what’s the future of these diplomatic efforts going forward? For answers, “The Naked Pravda” turns to two experts in this field: Olga Oliker, the Director of the International Crisis Group’s Europe and Central Asia Program, and Pavel Podvig, an independent analyst based in Geneva, where he runs his research project, “Russian Nuclear Forces,” and works as a senior research fellow at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research and as a researcher with the Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton University. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Saturdays (or sometimes Fridays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

For the last six months, Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny has been making headlines both in Russia and abroad. His near-fatal poisoning in August 2020 provoked international outcry and his immediate arrest upon returning to Russia after spending months recovering in Germany sparked a wave of protests that brought people to the streets countrywide.  With Navalny in jail, his supporters and associates sprang into action. The day after his arrest, his Anti-Corruption Foundation published an investigation about a billion-ruble palace allegedly built for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Meanwhile, his “Team Navalny” offices in cities across Russia worked to organize the demonstrations calling for his release. Nevertheless, on February 2, a Russian court sentenced Navalny to nearly three years in prison — as Meduza recorded this show, law enforcement in Moscow and St. Petersburg were detaining protesters opposing his sentence en masse. To assess the broader impact of Navalny’s anti-corruption work and his influence on politics in Russia, “The Naked Pravda” spoke to Ilya Lozovsky, a senior editor at the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), and Yana Gorokhovskaia, an independent researcher focusing on politics and civil society in Russia. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Saturdays (or sometimes Fridays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

In December 2010, a St. Petersburg businessman named Sergey Kolesnikov penned a nifty four-page open letter to then-President Dmitry Medvedev, outlining how a glorious palace built for Vladimir Putin came to be. The details of this seemingly ancient document are now familiar again thanks to a massive investigative report released this week by the opposition figure Alexey Navalny, who survived an attempted assassination last year only to be jailed last weekend after returning home to Moscow. As Meduza recorded this show, cities across Russia were hours away from planned protests in support of Navalny, who timed his investigation into Putin’s palace to land exactly as the world watches to see how his movement mobilizes against his incarceration. To learn more about how the Kremlin’s slush funds operate in Russia and abroad, how Vladimir Putin allegedly amassed a fortune in secret, and how the president’s early days in KGB still influence Russian politics, “The Naked Pravda” turned to Catherine Belton, a special correspondent at Reuters and the author of the 2020 book “Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West.” “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Saturdays (or sometimes Fridays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

Thanks to Russia’s recent constitutional amendments, local self-government has effectively lost its independence. State officials at all levels are now accountable, one way or another, to the president. Dramatic as these changes seem on paper, the reforms, in fact, formally recognize what has long been true in reality: appointed “city managers” have largely replaced the country’s elected mayors. But Russia’s “power vertical” relies on more than just political appointments. To learn about the other levers at the Kremlin’s disposal, Meduza turned to Yuval Weber, the Bren Chair of Russian Military and Political Strategy at Marine Corps University’s Krulak Center and a Research Assistant Professor at Texas A&M’s Bush School in Washington, DC. Dr. Weber is the author of a forthcoming book, titled “The Russian Economy,” about how economic reform efforts in Russia follow similar trajectories even among different types of government. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Saturdays (or sometimes Fridays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

There have been major breakthroughs in the investigative reporting surrounding the poisoning of Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny, whom the Federal Security Service allegedly tried to assassinate in August 2020. As Meduza has reported previously, Navalny’s case is part of a long, grim trend in Russia. In recent weeks, thanks to investigative work by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalists Mike Eckel and Carl Schreck, there is also new information available involving another apparent poisoning victim in Russia, the oppositionist Vladimir Kara-Murza. In December 2015, six months after Kara-Murza’s first hospitalization, he filed a police report claiming that someone had tried to kill him using poison. Two years later, after he was hospitalized a second time with another sudden and mysterious illness, the FBI in the United States, where Kara-Murza lives, got involved, but the bloodwork results based on samples provided by Kara-Murza’s family were classified. Kara-Murza is still trying to obtain these records through litigation in America. To learn more about the case, “The Naked Pravda” asked RFE/RL journalists Mike Eckel and Carl Schreck some burning questions about their investigation. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Saturdays (or sometimes Fridays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

Even if you follow news in Russia regularly, you might be unaware or only vaguely aware that Russia’s Central Bank printed an enormous sum of money over the past decade in a sweeping campaign to restructure the country’s major banks and liquidate smaller failing financial institutions. In a recent joint investigative report, Meduza and its media partners spoke to sources and obtained testimony from witnesses who described major abuses of authority by banking executives and senior regulatory officials. For further discussion about these events, and for more background and context about Russian monetary policy, “The Naked Pravda” turns to two experts: Tom Adshead, the director of research at Macro-Advisory Ltd. (an independent strategic advisory and macro analytics firm), and Stephanie Petrella, the editor-in-chief of BMB Russia and Ukraine and a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Eurasia program.  “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Saturdays (or sometimes Fridays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

On November 15, Moldovan citizens at home and abroad came out in record-breaking numbers to cast their ballots in the run-off vote of the country’s 2020 presidential elections. In the end, former Prime Minister Maia Sandu defeated incumbent President Igor Dodon, becoming Moldova’s very first woman president-elect.  Taking place amid the coronavirus pandemic, the campaign season was plagued by divisive political rhetoric and fake news. Meanwhile, international media framed the race as a battle between a pro-EU, anti-corruption candidate (Sandu) and a corrupt, pro-Russian incumbent (Dodon). But was this election really about the country’s geo-political direction? To fill in the backstory and find out what we can expect from Maia Sandu during her presidency, “The Naked Pravda” talks to four experts on Moldova about the country’s socio-political landscape, the 2020 vote, and the future of Chisinau’s foreign policy. Gina S. Lentine, Senior Program Officer for Europe and Eurasia at Freedom House, on how the pandemic impacted the Moldovan elections.Journalist Alina Radu, CEO and co-founder of the independent, investigative weekly Ziarul de Garda, reflects on investigative reporting under lockdown and the fight against fake news.  Ana Indoitu, Director of the Chisinau-based non-profit INVENTO, discusses the main candidates’ attitudes towards young people and civil society. Assistant Professor Ellie Knott from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) argues that geopolitics is often a veil for transnational corruption.  “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays (or sometimes Saturdays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

Back in early October, Meduza learned about a whole archive of transcripts between members of the Clinton administration and Vladimir Putin, dated between 1999 and 2001 — records that were first declassified and published by the Clinton Digital Library in August 2019. We wrote three feature stories based on these archives, highlighting and contextualizing some of the more memorable exchanges between Moscow and Washington. Comparing these conversations to the rhetoric that’s common now, the radically different flavor of today’s diplomacy is apparent. For a better understanding of how this relationship soured so dramatically, “The Naked Pravda” turns to three experts on Russian foreign policy and international relations: (3:13) Stanford University political scientist and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul describes meeting Vladimir Putin almost 30 years ago and watching his ideology evolve over the decades. (9:58) Cardiff University International Relations Professor Sergey Radchenko argues that there’s more continuity between the Yeltsin and Putin administrations than some scholars like to admit. (15:39) Dr. Carol Saivetz, a senior advisor in the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, describes how Putin lost faith in the West and democracy itself by trying and failing to get the partnership he expected. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Saturdays (or sometimes Fridays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

A six-week war in Nagorno-Karabakh has ended disastrously for Armenia. Judging by the map, the situation on the ground will revert mostly to the conditions in place before Yerevan’s 1991 war with Baku, leaving Azerbaijani artillery perched just outside the breakaway republic’s capital city and the 50,000 souls who call it home. The big difference this time around is the presence of Russian peacekeepers — about 2,000 of them — who will be there to monitor a Kremlin-brokered truce. Not formally part of the trilateral settlement but still very much involved in the conflict is Turkey, which is expected to field its own monitors in Azerbaijan, albeit outside the Karabakh region. For a better understanding of the violence that took place in this area since late September, and to explore what it means to have won or lost in this war, “The Naked Pravda” turned to three experts: (3:15) Neil Hauer, a Canadian journalist based in the Caucasus who's reported extensively on conflicts in Georgia, Syria, and Nagorno-Karabakh, describes the mood now in Armenia and Yerevan’s plans for Karabakh’s future. (8:31) Richard Giragosian, the director of the Regional Studies Center (an independent think tank based in Armenia), argues that everyone involved in the six-week war has emerged a loser, in at least some respects. (16:31) Rob Lee, a former Marine engineer officer and a current doctoral student at King’s College London, explains how drones made all the difference in the latest clashes between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Saturdays (or sometimes Fridays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

On October 5, thousands of opposition demonstrators took to the streets of Bishkek to protest the official results of Kyrgyzstan’s parliamentary elections. About a dozen different opposition parties had failed to overcome the seven percent threshold needed to get into parliament and two pro-government parties had won nearly half the seats. The protesters demanded a repeat vote and on October 6 elections officials relented and invalidated the results.  Since then, Kyrgyzstan’s population has seen a lot more turmoil than the opposition protesters bargained for: parliament appointed a new prime minister, the president stepped down, and election officials scheduled a repeat parliamentary vote only to see it postponed indefinitely. Meanwhile, lawmakers have been pushing through legislation on changing the constitution and the country is planning to hold presidential elections in January. So how did all of this happen in such a short period of time? “The Naked Pravda” invited three experts on the show to speak about the lead up to the vote, the ensuing political crisis, and whether or not Russia has anything to do with it: (2:35) Bektour Iskender, journalist and co-founder of Kloop — an independent media organization based in Kyrgyzstan, recalls how the post-election protests escalated into an unexpected political crisis. (5:36) Dr. Erica Marat — an associate professor at the National Defense University’s College of International Affairs in Washington D.C., whose research focuses on violence, mobilization, and security institutions in Eurasia — explains why Sadyr Japarov’s lightning-fast rise to power can be considered a coup.  (15:30) Colleen Wood — a doctoral candidate in political science at Columbia University, who researches civil society and identity in Central Asia — discusses what social media reveals about social and political cleavages in Kyrgyzstan. (39:02) All three guests share their take on the Kremlin’s response to Kyrgyzstan’s political upheaval. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays (or sometimes Saturdays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

In April 2020, Russia shipped 45 ventilator machines to New York City as part of what became a humanitarian exchange with America at the height of the Big Apple’s initial coronavirus outbreak. But what should have been a heartwarming display of cooperation in challenging times quickly became a political boondoggle. American hospitals were unable to use the lifesaving machines due to a lack of adapters to convert their required electrical voltage. Subsequently, a few weeks after the Aventa-M ventilators were delivered, several of the same models reportedly burst into flames at two hospitals in Moscow and St. Petersburg, killing six people and raising concerns about the devices’ safety.  The ventilators also became politically toxic in the United States after U.S. officials completed the equipment exchange with Russia by shipping medical supplies worth several times more than what Moscow sent to New York. Additionally, the Russian machinery’s manufacturer, “Concern Radio-Electronic Technologies” (a Rostec subsidiary), is currently under U.S. sanctions imposed against Moscow (though White House officials say the sanctions don’t apply to medical supplies). Just a few days ago, on October 19, BuzzFeed News correspondent Chris Miller reported that the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency “essentially tossed [the Russian ventilators] in the trash.” To find out more about the U.S. government’s decision, “The Naked Pravda” spoke to Chris Miller. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays (or sometimes Saturdays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

Armenia and Azerbaijan reached a fragile ceasefire agreement in Moscow on October 10 after nearly a dozen hours in negotiations. The two sides will suspend hostilities so bodies and prisoners of war can be exchanged, while diplomats from Yerevan and Baku debate a more lasting resolution. Since the late 1980s, the fight for the Nagorno-Karabakh region has killed roughly 20,000 people and made refugees of hundreds of thousands more. Since the most recent escalation that began on September 27, 2020 (already the second resumption of hostilities this year), several hundred soldiers have reportedly died in combat, along with several dozen civilians. “The Naked Pravda” asked four experts to explain what fuels the longest-running war on former Soviet soil: (3:50) Thomas de Waal — a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe, the author of “Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War” (2003), and more recently the coauthor of “Beyond Frozen Conflict“ (2020) — explains why the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is more dangerous than many people realize. (8:19) Jeffrey Mankoff, a distinguished research fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies at U.S. National Defense University, discusses what’s happened on the ground Nagorno-Karabakh this September. (12:05) Journalist Arzu Geybulla describes growing up in Azerbaijan and falling out of favor with the government. (23:07) Kevork Oskanian, an honorary research fellow at the University of Birmingham and the co-author of “Fear, Weakness, and Power in the Post-Soviet South Caucasus” (2013), breaks down the local political pressures in Armenia and Azerbaijan. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays (or sometimes Saturdays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

The historian Stephen Cohen died on September 18 at the age of 81. Though he became something of a pariah among American Russianists in his final years, particularly after 2014 (thanks to his views on the Ukraine conflict, which often dovetailed with Kremlin talking points), Cohen was perhaps best known professionally for his 1973 biography about Nikolai Bukharin, the Bolshevik revolutionary he believed represented an alternative path for Soviet socialism that derailed into collectivization and mass violence because of Joseph Stalin. Cohen had similar misgivings about Boris Yeltsin undoing Mikhail Gorbachev’s Perestroika. This week, Meduza published an obituary for Cohen written by Ivan Kurilla, a professor of history and international relations at European University at St. Petersburg. For another perspective on Cohen’s legacy among Russia scholars, “The Naked Pravda” turns to historian Sean Guillory, the digital scholarship curator in the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies at the University of Pittsburgh and a fellow podcaster. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays (or sometimes Saturdays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

About a decade ago, after a temporary falling out with Vladimir Putin, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko tried to pivot his country to the West. In this endeavor, he had help from a British PR firm called “Bell Pottinger” that once employed some of the most influential spin-doctors in the world. The campaign was a complete failure: the consultants left empty-handed and Lukashenko became an international pariah once again. In August 2020, after workers at state television and radio broadcasters in Belarus started walking off the job in protest as the police brutally dispersed opposition demonstrations, a handful of independent journalists and activists reported that whole brigades of “strikebreakers” from Russia arrived to replace these employees. Meduza investigative editor Alexey Kovalev researched both of these stories, discovering that the oligarch Boris Berezovsky bankrolled Lukashenko’s attempt to win over the West, and that Russian journalists now in Minsk aren’t so much replacing Belarusian journalists as they are reshaping the local media’s approach to propaganda. Meduza also spoke to Alex Kokcharov, a country risk analyst who focuses on Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia, and the Caucasus, to learn more about younger Belarusians’ media diets. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays (or sometimes Saturdays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

The German media reported on September 9 that Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny was poisoned with a new type of “Novichok” nerve agent, more dangerous than any variation previously identified. Earlier in the month, Meduza science editor Alexander Ershov interviewed biochemist Marc-Michael Blum to find out more about how analytical chemistry is able to identify these poisons in patients and what the outlook is for Navalny’s recovery. (Read the interview’s transcript here.) On social media, it’s easy to find skeptics who question the German specialists’ conclusions — particularly because the implications of a nerve-agent attack against an opposition leader on his home soil are severe and strongly suggest the state authorities’ involvement — but such incredulity is hard to maintain in the face of Dr. Blum’s explanations. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays (or sometimes Saturdays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

On September 1, 2020, the Russian newspaper Kommersant ran a story that looked like a real bombshell before it fizzled out. The report, titled “Hackers Appeal to the U.S. State Department: American Voter Data Appears on Russian Darknet,” credits a Russian hacker platform with posting millions of American voters’ personal data (mainly voters in the swing state of Michigan, but also in Connecticut, Florida, and North Carolina) and then profiting off a U.S. government project to pay foreigners for tips about election interference. Kommersant also quoted experts who warned that the publication of the voter data could be a “provocation” ahead of this year’s presidential election in the U.S. But the voter data in question wasn’t hacked or leaked — it’s all publicly available — and the U.S. State Department says it’s yet to pay anyone for intelligence about election interference. Kommersant’s report isn’t entirely false, however. Russian hackers are sharing the personal information of millions of American voters, and that’s not all. To understand why this is happening and what may have motivated Kommersant’s reporting, “The Naked Pravda” turns to three analysts working on cyber-threats, digital diplomacy, and Russian politics. (5:28) Ian Litschko, a cyber-threat intelligence analyst, explains why Russian hackers traffic open-source U.S. voter data. (11:33) Oleg Shakirov, a consultant at the PIR Center in Moscow and an expert in European security and digital diplomacy, discusses the novelty of a “Russiagate” story that broke in Russia, not in the West. (17:03) Yana Gorokhovskaia, an independent researcher on Russian politics, describes the intended audience for Kommersant’s report and why it matters. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays (or sometimes Saturdays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

If you’ve read anything about Russia’s coronavirus vaccine, “Sputnik V,” you know that it’s rolling out to the public in October, just as Phase III trials begin — meaning that researchers still have no idea how effective the product actually is. So far, the scientists developing Sputnik V say they’ve combined Phase I and Phase II testing and confirmed its safety and immunogenicity, but they’ve yet to compare it to a placebo and the handful of patients already injected were all relatively young and healthy. The Gamaleya Research Institute, which developed Sputnik V, says it hopes to manufacture 3-5 million doses annually, once production is up and running. A handful of other Russian biotech companies will be manufacturing the vaccine, as well. Russia says it’s already received orders for a billion doses around the world.  Suspiciously and unlike most foreign researchers working on a coronavirus vaccine, the Gamaleya Research Institute has yet to publish any trial results in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Despite promises from the Russian team, they haven’t shared any details about their vaccine tests with the global expert community. To learn more about Russia’s coronavirus vaccine and explore the risks and research behind this product, The Naked Pravda turns to two social scientists: Judyth Twigg, a political science professor at the Virginia Commonwealth University, who studies healthcare in Russia and Eurasia, and Cynthia Buckley, a sociology professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, who works on global health and social demography in Eurasia. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays (or sometimes weekends). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

Opposition politician and Anti-Corruption Foundation creator Alexey Navalny was hospitalized early on Thursday, August 20, in critical condition. At the time this podcast was recorded, he was in a coma and breathing through a ventilator in Omsk, where his flight home to Moscow was forced to make an emergency landing when he became violently ill. “The Naked Pravda” reviews what we know about Navalny’s situation and looks back at recent poisonings in Russia, as well as the muted police response in these cases, to get a sense of what he is up against. Meduza in English managing editor Kevin Rothrock discusses past attacks on Navalny as well as the alleged poisonings of Pyotr Verzilov, Sergey Mokhov, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Yuri Shchekochikhin, Alexander Litvinenko, Viktor Yushchenko, and Anna Politkovskaya. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays (or sometimes Saturdays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

On August 9, Belarus concludes its most contentious, openly dirtiest, and toughest presidential campaign ever. During the race, one leading (albeit unregistered) candidate has been imprisoned (as well as two campaign chiefs of staff) and another fled the country altogether. Long-time incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko (Alyaksandr Lukashenka) now faces a surprisingly formidable challenge from Svetlana Tikhanovskaya (Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya), a woman thrust into the nation’s political spotlight. To understand better what is at stake in the race, what it means for Lukashenko to compete against a woman, and why the Belarusian authorities arrested nearly three dozen alleged Russian mercenaries just days before the election, “The Naked Pravda” turned to three experts on Belarusian politics. (3:03) Maryia Rohava, doctoral candidate at the University of Oslo whose research focuses on nationalism, symbolic politics in post-Soviet autocracies, and identity studies (6:10) Ryhor Astapenia, fellow at Chatham House and founder and research director of the Center of New Ideas in Belarus (7:50) Franak Viačorka, journalist in Belarus and creative director at RFE/RL’s Belarus service “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays (or sometimes Saturdays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

For the past two years, several major state news organizations in Russia have been working with China’s biggest media conglomerate to trade publicity about each nation’s greatest achievements. Beijing’s efforts have fallen mostly flat in Russia, however, thanks to shortages of trained personnel and shortcomings in China’s grasp of the Russian mediasphere. Moscow, meanwhile, has struggled as the propaganda pact’s junior partner. To learn more about how the Russian and Chinese state media work together, why this cooperation has stumbled, and how geopolitics plays into this relationship, “The Naked Pravda” turned to three experts, as well as Meduza’s own investigative editor: (1:23) Meduza investigative editor Alexey Kovalev explains how he first learned about media cooperation between state broadcasters in Russia and China. (5:07) Maria Repnikova, an expert in Chinese media politics and an assistant professor in Global Communication at Georgia State University, warns against using too negative a frame to analyze Chinese foreign broadcasting. (11:48) Alexander Gabuev, who chairs the Carnegie Moscow Center’s “Russia in the Asia-Pacific Program,” describes major differences between the Russian and Chinese media markets. (22:23) Professor of International Relations Sergey Radchenko discusses Moscow’s cautious approach to the expansion of Chinese influence, like the Belt and Road Initiative. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays (or sometimes Saturdays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

In reporting and analysis about Russian politics, the question is ubiquitous: How does Vladimir Putin see things? While there’s no shortage of efforts to read the Russian president’s mind, a more grounded approach would be to examine the intelligence that shapes Putin’s policymaking. One of the Kremlin’s best-trusted sources of information about popular moods is the sociological work conducted by the country’s Secret Service, the Federal Protective Service (FSO).  Most Russians are unaware that the FSO, in addition to guarding top state officials, is responsible for conducting sociological surveys and monitoring popular opinion and the country’s political situation. The agency’s findings are never published, but these data inform some of President Putin’s biggest decisions. For example, fairly recently, FSO polls showing rising national discontent reportedly influenced the Putin administration’s decision to expedite the reopening of Moscow and the rollback of its coronavirus quarantine measures. To learn more about this kind of polling and the state of sociological research generally in Russia, “The Naked Pravda” turned to two sociologists who work on Russia: (4:41) Denis Volkov, the deputy director at the Levada Center, explains how Russia’s elites interpret and utilize polling. (7:34) Маrgarita Zavadskaya, a researcher at the University of Helsinki and the European University in St. Petersburg, discusses problems with big data and selling state officials on sociology. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays (or sometimes Saturdays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

On the morning of July 7, federal agents arrested Ivan Safronov, a longtime journalist who recently took a job as a communications adviser to Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin. Safronov is being charged with treason and faces up to 20 years in prison.  His lawyers have been granted limited access to the case file compiled by the Federal Security Service, which indicates that Safronov is suspected of selling secret information to Czech intelligence agents about Russian military cooperation with an unnamed African Middle Eastern country. The Czechs supposedly recruited him in 2012 and he allegedly sent them the data over the Internet five years later in 2017. Outside the FSB’s headquarters in Lubyanka Square, during Safronov’s arraignment hearing on July 7, dozens of journalists picketed, each taking turns holding up signs in his defense, and police officers arrested them, one by one, for an unlawful assembly.  To understand more about trends in policing journalists and reporting on national security in Russia, “The Naked Pravda” turns to two guests on today’s show: (6:46) Rachel Denber, the deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia Division, looks back at how Russian journalists have been treated for the past 15 years. (14:49) Dmitry Gorenburg, a senior research scientist in the Strategic Studies division of CNA and an associate at the Harvard University Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies (as well as the author of the Russian Military Reform blog), explains why work like Ivan Safronov’s military reporting is essential. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays (or sometimes Saturdays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

On Friday, June 26, a Moscow court announced verdicts in the controversial “Seventh Studio” case involving the alleged embezzlement of almost 129 million rubles (about $1.9 million) allocated to the Culture Ministry’s “Platforma” project (a state-led contemporary art incubator). All four defendants — director Kirill Serebrennikov, former Culture Ministry official Sofia Apfelbaum, former “Seventh Studio” general producer Alexey Malobrodsky, and the studio’s former CEO, Yuri Itin — maintain their innocence. This week, “The Naked Pravda” takes a closer look at Kirill Serebrennikov to try to understand what makes him so special in Russia’s art world.  In this episode: (2:54) Joshua Yaffa, The New Yorker's Moscow correspondent and the author of the new book “Between Two Fires: Truth, Ambition, and Compromise in Putin’s Russia,” explains the contradictions that have defined Serebrennikov’s career in theater. (7:04) Maria Alyokhina, a founding member of Pussy Riot and Mediazona, describes what makes Serebrennikov unique in Moscow’s art scene and how he cultivated solidarity among artists and entertainers.  (18:06) The Calvert Journal features editor Katie Marie Davies explains the role of state subsidies in Russian theater and cinema. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays. Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

On today’s show, host Kevin Rothrock speaks to online-disinformation investigation pioneer Ben Nimmo about his latest research into a sweeping Russian disinformation campaign called “Secondary Infektion.” Mr. Nimmo is the founder of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab and last year he became the head of investigations for the social-media monitoring company “Graphika.” This week, Graphika released a new report about a long-running Russian information operation that is allegedly responsible for forgeries, election interference, and attacks on Kremlin critics across six years and 300 different websites and online platforms. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays (or sometimes Saturdays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

This week’s show looks at Russian nationalism, activism in Russia against police brutality, and the American alt-right. We also return specifically to remarks by Mikhail Svetov from last week’s show about an initiative he’s calling “Russian Lives Matter.” The Black Lives Matter movement in the United States has occasioned a global conversation about racism and institutionalized prejudice. These themes resonate everywhere, even in countries without America’s legacy of slavery and segregation. In Russia, some right-wing groups have sought to adapt and appropriate BLM’s terminology, both cynically for publicity and deliberately in order to diminish what they’ve described as a divisive leftist upheaval. In this episode: (4:27) Meduza features editor Hilah Kohen dissects Mikhail Svetov’s motivations for the “Russian Lives Matter” initiative. (5:33) Marlene Laruelle — an associate director and research professor at the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University and the co-director of PONARS — breaks down what Russian nationalism actually is. (21:56) Investigative journalist Casey Michel explains America’s alt-right. (30:25) “Pussy Riot” activist and Mediazona publisher Peter Verzilov talks about sustained activism in Russia against brutality in the justice system. (40:31) Poet, musician, and socialist activist Kirill Medvedev argues that “Russian Lives Matter” is how nationalists “wink” at each other while pretending to be inclusive. (44:53) Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon, a history instructor at San Jacinto College, responds to Mikhail Svetov’s interpretation of the American Civil Rights Movement. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays (or sometimes Saturdays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

On today’s episode, we’ll hear from five guests about race and injustice in Russia and the Soviet Union, including from the activist behind a new initiative against police brutality in Russia built around the slogan “Russian Lives Matter.” As you may have guessed, this adapts the better known phrase “Black Lives Matter,” which is the rallying cry for an enormous social movement that is sweeping the United States. Both of these slogans are ostensibly about opposition to police brutality, but they embody very different perspectives on injustice. Black Lives Matter, or BLM, has dominated the news cycle in the U.S., largely supplanting coronavirus as the nation’s leading story. The movement has attracted attention in Russia, as well, where the state media has geopolitical reasons to highlight how the United States is a racist and failed democracy, and where many anti-Kremlin, typically Western-leaning oppositionists look to places like the United States as an example for better governance and civil society. In other words, they’re watching the U.S. from Russia, and Black Lives Matter is now front and center. In this episode: (5:56) Libertarian Party member and “Civil Society” movement head Mikhail Svetov explains the “Russian Lives Matter” initiative. (17:24) Meduza features editor Hilah Kohen argues that BLM is wrongly portrayed as riots and divisiveness. (22:59) Rogers Sure, a Kenyan man who studies engineering in Yekaterinburg, describes what it’s like to be African in Russia. (30:54) Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon, a history instructor at San Jacinto College, summarizes her fieldwork and research into African Americans living in the USSR and minority scholars in Slavic studies. (44:53) Meredith Clark, an associate professor in the Department of Media Studies at the University of Virginia, breaks down the fundamentals of Black Lives Matter, about which you can learn more here. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays (or sometimes Saturdays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

This week's guest is Joshua Yaffa, The New Yorker's Moscow correspondent and the author of the new book “Between Two Fires: Truth, Ambition, and Compromise in Putin’s Russia,” which offers a look at Putin’s Russia without focusing on Putin, studying a handful of individual case studies and the moral choices of various individuals who have played unique or interesting roles in contemporary Russia. Where does this book fit in the wider literature on Russia and ethics? Are questions of conscience a problem only for intellectuals? How broad is the power of the book's explanatory prism? And how have time and now the coronavirus pandemic affected the trends laid out in the book? Joshua answered these questions and more. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays. Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

In the past several weeks, Meduza has written extensively about the newsroom controversy at Vedomosti, one of Russia’s top business newspapers. Most recently, Meduza published a joint investigation with a handful of other independent news outlets (including Vedomosti itself) about the backroom wheeling and dealing that’s guided the outlet’s ownership for the past five years. In this episode of “The Naked Pravda,” host Kevin Rothrock reviews what we know about developments at Vedomosti and speaks to Financial Times Moscow correspondent Max Seddon about the story and business journalism in Russia more broadly. Listen to the end and you’ll be treated to an anecdote about how reporters rekindled the bromance between President Vladimir Putin and action film star Steven Seagal. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays. Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

On May 4, 2020, the Pulitzer Prize Board announced the latest winners of the most coveted award in journalism. The staff of The New York Times won prizes in three different categories: international reporting, investigative reporting, and commentary. The first honor was awarded for “a set of enthralling stories, reported at great risk, exposing the predations of Vladimir Putin’s regime.” The winning work includes six articles and two videos. Not one of the stories is actually set inside Russia: the reports are about wars in Libya and Syria, elections in Madagascar and the Central African Republic, and murders in Bulgaria and Ukraine. The Russian authorities naturally condemned the prize selection, but criticism of The New York Times's award-winning journalism also came from several Russian investigative reporters, including Roman Badanin, who says his news outlet, Proekt, broke the story at the heart of at least one of the winning works that earned this years' international reporting Pulitzer: an article by Michael Schwirtz, released in November 2019, titled “How Russia Meddles Abroad for Profit: Cash, Trolls and a Cult Leader,” which appeared eight months after Proekt’s “Master and Chef: How Evgeny Prigozhin Led the Russian Offensive in Africa” and repeats many of the same findings, chronicling similar events and describing many of the same circumstances and characters. To understand the dispute better, “The Naked Pravda” spoke to Roman Badanin and Meduza corresponded with a representative from The New York Times. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays. Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

In a world engulfed by the coronavirus pandemic, “The Naked Pravda” travels back in time to the carefree 1980s, when Americans and Russians worried about simpler things like World War III. Fears in U.S. popular culture that the Cold War might turn hot culminated in 1984 with the film “Red Dawn,” starring Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen, about a group of high school students resisting occupation by invading Soviet, Cuban, and Nicaraguan troops. Even if you haven’t seen the movie, you’ve probably seen people on the Internet shouting “Wolverines!” at each other — a reference to the name Red Dawn’s protagonists adopt for their guerrilla group.  Soviet-born journalist Slava Malamud joins this discussion about Cold War cinema. Last year, his tweets about the HBO miniseries “Chernobyl” gained enormous popularity, attracting thousands of likes and reposts, including from Craig Mazin, the show’s creator. In May 2019, Meduza published a story from Slava about his stepfather’s experience as a liquidator at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1986. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays. Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

In regions and cities across Russia, state officials are taking extraordinary measures to limit people's movements and curb the spread of coronavirus. On March 18, Russia’s Supreme Court even imposed a moratorium on all hearings across the nation’s judicial system except for particularly “urgent cases,” though judges have enormous leeway here to decide what meets this threshold. Meanwhile, Russia's prison system has effectively locked down, and observers warn that we now even less know about what happens at these facilities than we did before. To get a better grasp of the coronavirus containment measures' effects on Russia's justice system, “The Naked Pravda” turned to two pairs of human rights activists and scholars, as well as the author of a Meduza investigative report about how the coronavirus quarantine is making it even harder in Russia to find justice in the courts. In this episode: (3:25) Liliya Yapparova, Meduza investigative journalist (6:01) Kirill Koroteev, head of international practice at the “Agora” international human rights group (11:45) Valentina Dekhtyarenko, project manager at the “Open Russia” human rights group (14:13) Dr. Olga Zeveleva, postdoctoral researcher at the Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki, contributing to the Gulag Echoes project (21:50) Ksenia Runova, junior researcher at the Institute for the Rule of Law at the European University at St. Petersburg “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays. Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

In late 2019, many Internet users started noticing that the Russian state media was increasingly describing gas explosions as “gas pops” in news coverage — even when the incidents caused major damage to life and property. In fact, the number of “gas pops” mentioned in news reports jumped from a few dozen stories in early 2017 to thousands of such reports by January 2020. Meduza’s sources in the presidential administration and Russia’s security agencies say this is the result of a targeted policy to introduce more “favorable information conditions” meant to avoid a public panic when reporting gas explosions. Since February 2020, when Meduza first published its findings about “gas pops” in Russian headlines, the significance of euphemisms in news reporting has only grown with the global spread of coronavirus. To understand this phenomenon better, “The Naked Pravda” welcomed back media scholar Sarah Oates, a professor at the University of Maryland, and Alexey Kovalev, Meduza's head of investigative reporting. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays. Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

In late March 2020, after the owners of the newspaper Vedomosti confirmed that they'd reached a preliminary agreement to sell off the publication, deputy editors appealed to the paper’s new owners in a letter where they warned that the newsroom is in chaos, advertisers are in shock, and subscribers are demanding refunds for paid subscriptions. The letter’s authors argue that the only remedy is to appoint a new chief editor from among the newsroom’s own ranks. The crisis follows the decision by Vedomosti's new owners to install a new editor-in-chief named Andrey Shmarov, who promptly alienated the staff in a bawdy introduction where he touted his ignorance about Vedomosti's own code of ethics, professed not to read the newspaper itself, and then defended Harvey Weinstein and expressed skepticism about the very concept of sexual harassment. To understand the significance of the trouble at Vedomosti, “The Naked Pravda” turned to Vedomosti editor-at-large Maxim Trudolyubov, who helped launched the publication more than 20 years ago. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays. Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

LGBTQ activists in the Russophone world face obstacles that many in the Anglophone world do not, but that means they also find ways to survive that defy the imagination. One way queer Russian speakers have found to work through those life-and-death decisions is writing science fiction. Through stories about augmented reality, lesbian seduction in space, sentient plants, and more, activists have offered political commentary on post-Soviet oppression that’s impossible to find in the mainstream opposition. To understand how Russophone writers are using sci-fi to map out the region’s political future, “The Naked Pravda” reached out to scholars in Japan, Kyrgyzstan, and Sweden. They walked us through the broader Russian sci-fi scene and reflected on how speculative writing has changed their own scholarship and activism. In this episode: (6:33) Mikhail Suslov, an assistant professor of Russian History and Politics at the University of Copenhagen currently sheltering in Sweden, explains why the vast majority of Russian sci-fi published today has ties to the Kremlin and the Orthodox Church. (14:29) Georgy Mamedov, an academic who chairs the board for the LGBTQ organization Labrys in Kyrgyzstan, asks why so much queer Russophone science fiction fantasizes about complete separation from the rest of the world even as the people who write it get more and more determined to engage with the homophobes around them. (16:19) Syinat Sultanalieva, a prominent activist and a PhD candidate in international studies at the University of Tsukuba, breaks down the geopolitical undertones of her short story “Element 174.” “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays. Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

As COVID-19 spreads rapidly across the world, the disease is pushing healthcare systems to the brink. The number of reported cases is low but rising in Russia, where officials have imposed limits on public assemblies and major events, while resisting the more drastic measures deployed in Asia and now rolling out in the West. To get a better grasp of what to expect from Russia's hospitals and medical science, “The Naked Pravda” turned to a handful of experts who study healthcare in Russia. We also spoke to several people living in Moscow, to hear about life on the ground during the pandemic. In this episode: (3:04) Yale University Professor of Epidemiology and of Pharmacology Robert Heimer explains how a coronavirus test actually works. (6:11) Virginia Commonwealth University Professor of Political Science Judyth Twigg highlights the flaws in Russia's official coronavirus case numbers. (13:41) Georgetown University Professor Emeritus of Government and International Affairs Harley Balzer pours cold water on claims that Russian import substitution has been a success. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays. Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

We’ve known it was coming since January when Vladimir Putin warned the nation, but now it’s moving at full throttle and threatens to inflict untold damage. No, it’s not the coronavirus — it's the other calamity currently unfolding in Russia: a massive campaign to rewrite the Constitution so that Vladimir Putin’s presidency might continue until 2036. When this episode was recorded, all that stood between major constitutional reforms and enactment were a ruling from Russia’s Constitutional Court and a nationwide vote that draws the support of at least half the Russians who bother to vote. Federal and regional legislators have moved with lightning speed in the past week, all under a cloud of dubious legality. To find out more about what laws are being bent or trampled in the campaign to allow Vladimir Putin another two presidential terms, “The Naked Pravda” turned to three scholars in Russia and the UK. In this episode: (3:24) Ben Noble, an assistant professor in Russian politics at the University College London, explains that Russian lawmakers moved so quickly with the Kremlin's constitutional amendments because this was a top personal priority for Vladimir Putin. (7:15) Ella Paneyakh, a sociologist at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg, argues that legislators waited until the last minute to move forward with many amendments, polluting the legislation with a lot of “bad law.” (14:30) Jane Henderson, an academic lawyer at King's College London and an expert in Russia's legal system, breaks down the ways to revise Russia's Constitution and the pitfalls of the theoretical checks and balances put in place. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays. Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

The Democratic Party's primaries are underway in the United States, where the country's increasingly left-leaning political party is flirting with democratic socialist Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders as its nominee. Additionally, recent reports citing U.S. national intelligence that Russian operatives are again trying to interfere in the American presidential election have revived the media's interest in “RussiaGate” discourse that finally faded only last year with the release of the Mueller Report. With all this talk of “the Russians,” however, what do Russian people in the U.S. actually think about the presidential race? On this episode of “The Naked Pravda,” host Kevin Rothrock spoke to seven liberal- and left-leaning Russians who currently reside in the United States about their views concerning the Democratic primaries and what they think of “RussiaGate” news coverage in the American media. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays. Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

Earlier this month, Meduza published an article by Andrey Pertsev about President Vladimir Putin's shifting rhetoric when discussing the 1939 Soviet-Nazi nonaggression pact, as well as his growing criticism of Polish foreign policy in the year before the USSR cut a deal with Adolf Hitler. Despite being many decades old, these events remain hotly debated in Eastern Europe for obvious reasons: millions died in the conflict, which ended with Poland in the Soviet bloc for more than 40 years, and questions about blame and who only did “what was necessary” are still issues that offend and excite. That is undoubtedly why political elites today in both Russia and Poland often talk about the war, defending their own country's legacy against allegations from abroad. On this episode of “The Naked Pravda,” however, we turn not to political elites, but four historians. Can scholarly work establish blame? Is this something that drives academic work? What is whitewashed in the debate playing out in speeches and news headlines right now? Listen to the show and find out. In this episode: (4:26) Geoffrey Roberts, a professor of history at the University College Cork in Ireland, explains how Vladimir Putin apparently sees the history of the late 1930s. (7:33) Tom Junes, a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow and a historian at the European University Institute in Florence, says the only country we can rationally blame for starting WWII is Nazi Germany. (13:10) Arch Getty, a distinguished research professor of history at UCLA, says Putin gets more right about the history of the late 1930s than he gets wrong. (21:48) Ivan Kurilla, a professor of history and international relations at European University at St. Petersburg, discusses the challenges now facing historians of the 20th century in Russia and Eastern Europe. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays. Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

In mid-January, administrators at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics (HSE, perhaps the best university in Russia, shared a proposal to impose greater restrictions on political activism within the university that would have prohibited individuals affiliated with HSE from mentioning this connection when discussing political issues or taking part in what school officials described as “socially divisive” activities. The university also announced that HSE is stripping all student media groups of their official status, apparently in response to the actions of a single student outlet called Doxa. About a week later, on January 24, HSE’s Academic Council held a 10-hour meeting. Among many issues, the council discussed the proposed amendments to the school’s internal rules, ultimately watering down many of the most draconian suggestions. To find out more about this situation and understand how it compares to political freedoms on U.S. campuses, “The Naked Pravda” spoke to a handful of scholars in Russia and America. In this episode: (1:53) Greg Yudin, a senior research fellow and associate professor of sociology at the Higher School of Economics, says HSE's administration listened to students and reached a reasonable compromise. (4:28) Armen Aramyan, an editor at Doxa and a graduate student at the Higher School of Economics, says the amended rules adopted by HSE's Academic Council are still too vague and restrictive. (7:42) Andrey Lavrov, HSE’s public relations director, addresses the compromise reached between the administration and disgruntled students. (22:15) Kris Olds and Mark Johnson, two scholars at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, describe restrictions on political activism on U.S. college campuses. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays. Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

The “Agora” human rights group and digital activists at Roskomsvoboda recently released a report on Russian Internet freedom in 2019, where they argue that the state authorities have settled on an Internet policy vector focused on “control, censorship, and isolation.” Late last year, Meduza published a story about how a Federal Protective Service veteran and the descendant of one of Russia’s most celebrated families of missile engineers has been appointed to serve as the director of a powerful new monitoring center inside Roskomnadzor, Russia’s state censor, which is responsible for enforcing legislation that took effect in November 2019 that is ostensibly intended “to ensure the integrity, continuity, stability, resilience, and security of the functioning of the Internet’s Russian national segment.”  The law, which charges a new division of Roskomnadzor with ensuring the RuNet’s stable operation and defense from external threats, is convoluted and potentially unenforceable. To find out more about Russia's push for Internet isolation and its feasibility, “The Naked Pravda” turns to three experts. In this episode: (4:35) Tanya Lokot, an assistant professor in the School of Communications at Dublin City University, looks at the strategic thinking in Moscow. (9:28) Alena Epifanova, a program officer at the German Council on Foreign Relations and author of “Deciphering Russia’s ‘Sovereign Internet Law,” explains deep packet inspection. (14:23) Marielle Wijermars, an assistant professor in cyber-security and politics at Maastricht University in the Netherlands and a visiting researcher at the University of Helsinki, asks why Russian regulators don't enforce all the Internet regulations on the books. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays. Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

In recent years, we've witnessed a strange convergence of Russian and American conspiratorial thinking. They're talking about each other again in Moscow and Washington, often spinning stories that aren't exactly rooted in facts. Whether it's Russiagate in the United States or color revolution in Russia and countries across the former Soviet Union, diabolical plots are afoot. To find out what drives popular conspiracy theories in Russia and the U.S., “The Naked Pravda” turned to a handful of scholars who study the subject. Today's show also takes a broader look at how Russians and Americans see themselves and each other. How did we get on this subject? Last month, Meduza investigative correspondent Liliya Yapparova, whose work we’ve discussed before on this podcast, wrote an article about a curious college course taught by Vitaly Grigorev, a military veteran and former instructor at the KGB Higher School. This winter term, Grigorev’s students in “national systems of information security” at the MIREA Russian Technological University — one of Russia's biggest technological schools — are learning about many strange concepts, including popular conspiracy theories, like the “Dulles Plan” (which claims that former CIA chief Allen Dulles plotted to destroy the USSR by corrupting its “cultural heritage” and “moral values”). In this episode: (2:15) Liliya Yapparova tells the story behind her story. (6:02) Scott Radnitz explains the political science of studying conspiracy theories. (8:48) Ilya Yablokov, author of “Fortress Russia,” distinguishes between grassroots and elite conspiracy theories. (16:29) Eliot Borenstein, author of “Plots Against Russia,” says American unreflexivity is the stuff of Russian culture's dreams. (29:46) Sean Guillory, host of the “SRB Podcast,” recalls America's Red Scare during the race riots of the early 20th century. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays. Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

Most weeks, it's fair to say that you could probably roll your eyes at a 30-minute podcast about the inner workings of executive power in Russia. But the issue is suddenly urgent. Two days ago, Vladimir Putin delivered his annual state-of-the-nation speech, where he surprised the country by calling for Constitutional amendments that would radically redistribute power in the Russian state, possibly weakening the presidential administration. And then his entire cabinet resigned, and long-time Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was moved (some would say demoted) to a new number-two spot on Russia’s Security Council. While you never really need an excuse in Russia to talk about Vladimir Putin or the Kremlin, the inspiration for this episode of “The Naked Pravda” was Andrey Pertsev’s October 2019 story about Sergey Kiriyenko, Putin’s current first deputy chief of staff and the supposed manager of Russia’s domestic politics. But the article is more than a Kiriyenko profile. It offers a broader look at his office in the Kremlin and at the Putin presidential administration itself, which remains enormously hard to comprehend, even two decades after Putin first took office. To understand the mechanics of Kremlin analysis, or Kremlinology, host Kevin Rothrock turned to some of the brightest political experts around. In this episode: (3:51) Maria Lipman on Kremlinology's shortcomings (5:42) Konstantin Gaaze says Russia's state ideology was designed accidentally as a “life hack” (8:10) Brian Taylor on the presidential administration's relationship with Russia's Constitution (22:28) Yana Gorokhovskaia says the proposed reforms will weaken Russia's super-presidential system (24:14) Sam Greene highlights the newfound importance of the State Council (25:58) Mark Galeotti explains Dmitry Medvedev's new home: the Security Council “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays. Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

According to a report by the news agency “Rossiya Segodnya,” almost half of the articles in the foreign press about Russia are “negative.” This recent study leans heavily on the British media (which makes up more than a third of the entire sample), where nearly 40 percent of the selected coverage is supposedly biased against Russia. Meduza learned that hundreds of the articles Rossiya Segodnya examined in the British press share the same author: a man who’s worked in Russia since 1992 and now simply rewrites blurbs he finds in Russian tabloids, selected for him by Russian staff working at his news agency. To find out more about this peculiar individual and learn why the Russian authorities devote resources to studies like the one released this fall, “The Naked Pravda” spoke to Meduza's head of investigative reporting, Alexey Kovalev, who profiled Stewart’s bizarre career in journalism in an article this October, and to media scholars Sarah Oates and Vasily Gatov. In this episode: (2:47) Alexey Kovalev explains how he found out about Will Stewart, a prolific British reporter in Moscow who turned to tabloids after years of serious journalism. (9:46) Sarah Oates argues that officials in Moscow shouldn't be surprised by the Western media's Russia coverage, and it's the trivialization of Russia that's really vexing. (16:09) Vasily Gatov describes the “symbiosis” of security functionaries and public relations spin doctors who guide state decision making in Russia. (24:28) Concluding remarks by your host, Kevin Rothrock. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays. Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

The Russian Presidential Affairs Department’s Scientific Research Computing Center (GRCC) develops systems to monitor and deanonymize social-media users, and it sells these systems to government and private clients alike. Using the company’s services, insurance companies can root out dishonest employees, and security-guard companies can recruit new staff. Other GRCC programs allow the police to hunt down “extremists” online. In a special report published in late September, Meduza learned that these computing systems collect information on Russians not just from open sources, but also from leaked databases that are sold illegally on the black market.  To find out more about Russia’s database black market and how this information is being used, “The Naked Pravda” spoke to Meduza special correspondent Liliya Yapparova and Christo Grozev and Aric Toler, two top researchers at the investigative journalism website Bellingcat. In this episode: (2:01) Liliya Yapparova explains how she first learned about GRCC and its controversial products. (5:46) Kevin and Liliya discuss the ethics of using illegal databases to hunt down criminals, and the tradeoffs tech consumers accept when embracing news services. (9:15) Christo Grozev reviews Bellingcat’s history and how he came to the group. (11:39) Aric Toler describes “digital stalking” and talks about Bellingcat’s mid-October report about one of the alleged Skripal poisoners attending the family wedding of a Russian military intelligence commander. (21:31) Aric explains why Bellingcat isn’t like Wikileaks. (23:56) Christo talks about when Bellingcat thinks it’s okay to use leaked databases. (30:29) Liliya and Christo argue that Russia’s data-leak problem can’t be fixed anytime soon. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays. Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

In life and in news reporting, violence against women is a sadly “evergreen” topic, but the issue has taken on new and growing momentum in Russia, where there’s a rising number of high-profile cases involving rape and self-defense. Meduza has reported extensively on these investigations, and, in this first episode of “The Naked Pravda,” managing editor Kevin Rothrock speaks to a handful of activists and journalists who are working to shed more light on these cases and the social movement that hopes to transform how Russia handles women’s safety. In this episode: (1:20) In mid-October, after weeks of hesitation, a journalist in Veliky Novgorod publicly accused a colleague from another local news outlet of raping her. (Read Meduza’s report here.) Why was she reluctant to speak openly about the assault? (5:22) Marina Pisklakova-Parker, the founder and chair of the board of the women’s rights group “Center ANNA,” recalls how women’s rights advocacy in Russia has evolved since the 1990s, and discusses the impact of being designated as a “foreign agent” by the Justice Ministry. (8:18) Hilah Kohen, Meduza’s English-language news editor, argues that ethical storytelling in cases of sexual violence focuses on survivors and frames allegations in a broader social context.  (14:40) Elena Kalinina, a managing partner at the advertising agency “Room485,” explains how her team created an interactive game designed to raise awareness about domestic violence and abusive partners. (17:45) Anna Romashchenko, region coordinator for the advocacy group “Nasiliu.net” (No to Violence), talks about creating safe spaces for women in Russia and the unexpected demographics of views about women’s rights.  (20:18) Ola Cichowlas, AFP’s Moscow correspondent, recounts her story about a woman in Moscow who was prosecuted for defending herself against an abusive partner. (23:26) Nastya Krasilnikova, who writes on Telegram about representations of women in the Russian media, argues that many news outlets actively “hate women,” but there is more willingness now than before to talk about sexual assault. If you or someone you know is in an unsafe relationship, there are resources available, like the National Domestic Violence Hotline in the U.S. and the National Domestic Violence Helpline in the UK. In Russia, you can contact Nasiliu.net, Center ANNA, and other groups. “The Naked Pravda” comes out on Fridays. Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

“The Naked Pravda” highlights how Meduza’s top reporting intersects with the wider research and expertise that exists about Russia. Future episodes will look at the following issues: 💾 Leaked databases and how the black market for this information has become a key aspect of Russian law enforcement and investigative journalism in Russia🗑️ Russian tabloid journalism and its reverberations in the Western news media⚔️ Kremlin clan politics and the power of the presidential administration. ✊ The show's first episode, which debuts on Friday, November 29, will address a sexual-assault case in Veliky Novgorod and the state of women’s rights and safety in Russia today. Americans, queue it up for that Thanksgiving drive home. 🎧 Subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts and other platforms.