MEDUZA/EN/VHF

Pyotr Mylnikov, a business owner from the village of Olovyannaya in Russia's Zabaykalsky Krai, has become the first person to be convicted under the new law banning "fake news" about the war in Ukraine. The charges were brought after Mylnikov shared two posts on Viber (in a group chat called "We live in ruins") about the progress of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. On May 31, a court found him guilty and imposed a fine of one million rubles ($16,148). Meduza spoke to Mylnikov about the content of his posts, how he was treated during his arrest, and why he decided to plead guilty.

June 3 marks the hundredth day of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Meduza's sources say that the Kremlin is trying to play down this fact, but Russian officials continue to assure that everything is going to plan. After three months of intense fighting, Russian forces have managed to occupy large swaths of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in southern Ukraine, but were driven out of the Kyiv region. In mid-April, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced that the "second stage" of the invasion was underway. This bloody "battle for the Donbas" remains ongoing. Throughout the invasion, the Ukrainian army has not only defended the country, but also launched counter offensives. For insight into what these 100 days of all-out war have meant for Ukraine and its armed forces, Meduza turned to military expert Mykhailo Samus from the Kyiv-based Center for Army, Conversion, and Disarmament Studies (CACDS). This interview has been edited and abridged for length and clarity.

Tomorrow, June 3, will mark 100 days since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. On the eve of this milestone, sources tell Meduza that Putin's administration has "asked" state-controlled and pro-Kremlin media outlets "not to focus attention" on the duration of the "special military operation." Meduza's sources say this is an attempt to elide the fact that Russian troops haven't been able to make significant gains after more than three months of war.

Russia's all-out war on Ukraine has been deadly for reporters. The Ukrainian Institute of Mass Information has recorded 243 crimes against journalists and the media committed by Russian troops since the start of the full-scale invasion (as of the end of April). At least 32 journalists have died while reporting on the war or fighting on the front lines. Reporters have been tortured and kidnapped, and as of the end of April, at least 15 Ukrainian media workers had gone missing. Over 100 regional Ukrainian outlets have had to shut down due to threats from Russia. In early May, the Pulitzer Prize committee dedicated a special award to all Ukrainian journalists -- for "their bravery, resilience, and commitment to truthful coverage" of the Russian invasion. Five Ukrainian journalists told Meduza about what it's like to live and work in these unprecedented circumstances.

On June 5, Kazakhstan held a referendum on amendments to its Constitution that were proposed by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. If you ask the Kazakhstani government, these amendments are a serious step on the path towards Kazakhstan's democratization. But many political scientists, activists, and Kazakhstani citizens believe that the referendum's main goal is to consolidate Tokayev's own power. Meduza explains what's happened in Kazakhstan since the protests that swept through the country in January, how Sunday's elections went, and how Kazakhstani citizens see the situation.

Russia's war against Ukraine has unleashed a battle not only between two armies and two societies, but also between two generations of leaders. Indeed, a striking age gap divides Russia and Ukraine's top brass. Vladimir Putin's close associates and key officials were largely born in the 1950s and 1960s. Whereas the most important positions in the Ukrainian leadership and on Volodymyr Zelensky's team are, for the most part, occupied by people born in the 1970s and 1980s. But there's also another clash of generations, one occurring not at the interstate level, but inside Russia itself. Putin's contemporaries are afraid to relinquish power and bequeath it to those who should be their successors. Instead, they've worked to bring the younger generations of would-be leaders to heel, pushing them to the margins of public space or driving them out of the country altogether.

When announcing the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin justified the "special military operation" by invoking World War II. Russian officials and propagandists on state television have been echoing Putin's claims about the need to "demilitarize and denazify Ukraine" ever since. In a similar vein, since mid-April, Moscow's Museum of the Great Patriotic War (also known as the Victory Museum) has been running an exhibition that supposedly traces the development of a "Ukrainian version of Nazism" from World War II to the present day. Upon visiting the exhibition, Meduza found a bizarre mishmash of information ripped from the Internet, memorabilia from Nazi Germany, and decontextualized TikTok videos from the ongoing war.

Since 2014, the world has gradually been learning about the horrors that occur in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Media reports have described how Uyghurs are put in "vocational training camps," which are effectively concentration camps. People can be put there for the smallest expression of religiosity, and any hope of getting out requires undergoing a "reeducation" process, though some never escape at all. Members of Xinjiang's other ethnic groups are put in the camps, too -- primarily Kazakhs. Since February 2021, the relatives and loved ones of Kazakh people currently being held in the Xinjiang camps have held daily protests outside of the Chinese Consulate in Almaty. Meduza is publishing photographer Ofeliya Zhakaeva's project "Nearby," which focuses on Chinese Kazakhs whose relatives have disappeared into the Xinjiang internment system. She photographed protest participants outside of the Consulate with objects that remind them of their loved ones and recorded their stories.

The reported annihilation of Russia's 35th Combined Arms Army is one of the most resonant stories to emerge from the front lines in the Donbas in recent days. President Volodymyr Zelensky's Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak shared the news on June 4, saying that the 35th Army had been "destroyed" during clashes with Ukraine's Armed Forces near Izyum. Meduza's own news update cited Yermak's claim, albeit with the disclaimer that our journalists could not immediately verify this official statement. Upon further verification, Meduza traced these reports back to their actual original source -- a LiveJournal post by a Russian military blogger who is currently serving in the "Luhansk People's Militia." The post, which provoked controversy among pro-Kremlin military bloggers and has since been removed, doesn't explicitly say that the entire 35th Army was obliterated. Meduza breaks down how a dubious blog post turned into a story reported around the world.

More than hundred days of Moscow waging war against Ukraine has changed the lives of many Russians. Those opposed to Russia's full-scale invasion initially took to the streets. When the authorities passed criminal penalties for "discrediting" the Russian army, they started taking part in the greater anti-war movement. Many were forced to leave the country. Others went to rallies in support of the "special operation" and parroted the arguments put forth in Russian propaganda about "denazifying" Ukraine. What has changed in Russian society during the war so far? How are Russians getting along with each other, and who is really supporting the "special operation"? Meduza posed these and other questions to sociologist Alexei Titkov.