The Naked Pravda

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. 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 Russia03:46 Controversy Surrounding Religious Jokes06:54 The Impact of the War on Comedians' Freedom of Expression07:19 The Journey to Berlin and the Start of a New Life11:42 Challenges Performing Comedy in a Foreign Language20:02 The Process of Building a Comedy Routine in English33:26 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 policy08:56 Raskolnikov on the global stage12:24 The strange pursuit of greatness and global leadership14:52 Soviet ambitions and Soviet means17:02 Moscow's persistent resentment21:34 The Berlin Crisis 28:30 The paradox of the USSR as a great power31:08 China's role in Soviet self-perceptions34:13 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 yetКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

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 Как поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

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 WestКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

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 warКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

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 daughterКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

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 forwardКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

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 censorshipКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

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 partnersКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

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 defensesКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

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 Как поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

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 todayКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

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 attacksКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

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 thereofКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

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 soldiersКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

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 listenersКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

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 pointКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

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 flagКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

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.Как поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

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. Как поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

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?Как поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

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 journalismКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

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.Как поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

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?Как поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

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 nostalgiaКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

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?Как поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

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.Как поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно