Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been without a chief of staff for more than a week. His former right-hand man, Andriy Yermak, resigned on November 28, hours after anti-corruption agents raided his apartment in Kyiv. The investigators were looking into a $100-million kickback scheme in Ukraine’s energy sector that has already cost several high-level officials their posts.

The timing of the biggest political scandal of Zelensky’s presidency couldn’t have been worse: news of the scheme broke just as the Trump administration pushed ahead with another round of talks to end Russia’s war against Ukraine. Among his many other roles, Yermak was Ukraine’s lead peace negotiator.

To put this enormous shake-up into context, Meduza senior news editor Sam Breazeale spoke to journalist Simon Shuster. A Ukraine expert and staff writer at The Atlantic, Shuster interviewed Yermak the day before his resignation. He also enjoyed extensive access to Zelensky and his circle while writing his 2024 biography The Showman: Inside the Invasion That Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodymyr Zelensky. Originally published in English, The Showman is now also available in Russian from Meduza’s own publishing house.

Timestamps for this episode:

• (1:39) The Zelensky administration without Yermak
• (5:40) The role of martial law
• (9:09) Negotiations and peace talks
• (22:57) Zelensky’s transformation and future
• (29:59) The governance challenges of wartime corruption

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

Belarusian pro-democracy activist Andrei Sannikov recently joined Beet editor Eilish Hart for a conversation recorded on the sidelines of the Halifax International Security Forum. The interview focused on the Trump administration’s growing engagement with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, including efforts to secure the release of more than a thousand political prisoners. In these negotiations, Lukashenko has leveraged a tactic honed by his regime over decades of authoritarian rule.

Sannikov knows the consequences of that system firsthand. He ran against Lukashenko in the 2010 presidential election, was badly beaten by riot police, and served time in prison after protests erupted over the rigged vote. From exile, he has watched Minsk turn prisoner releases into bargaining chips, trading a few high-profile dissidents for sanctions relief and then refilling the prisons with new detainees.

Against the backdrop of Trump’s second term and renewed U.S.–Belarus engagement, Sannikov warned that Washington risks falling into a familiar trap. While the White House celebrates diplomatic “breakthroughs,” Lukashenko continues to imprison more Belarusians than he frees, raising the unsettling question of whether outreach to Minsk delivers any real progress or merely legitimizes repression.

Timestamps for this episode:

• (3:06) Trump’s second term and Belarus relations
• (9:48) Lukashenko’s role in the Ukraine war
• (11:17) The geopolitical impact of Belarus breaking isolation
• (15:13) The future of Belarus: Neutrality vs. alliances
• (21:52) The importance of political prisoners and democratic resistance

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

In his 2024 state-of-the-nation address, Vladimir Putin declared that the word “elite” had lost much of its credibility. Russia’s “real elite,” he said, are those who serve their country: “the workers and warriors, reliable, trustworthy people who have proven their loyalty to Russia through their deeds.” 

It’s safe to assume that these words sent a chill through Russia’s elite circles, where top officials, business leaders, and military figures have been jockeying to hold on to their positions for nearly four years of wartime. 

With Putin laser-focused on winning the war against Ukraine, anyone who impedes that goal is at risk of finding themselves on the chopping block. Long-serving officials have fallen out of favor, while ultra-patriotic hardliners are rising to the top, leaving Putin surrounded by sycophants. But concentrating so much power in one 73-year-old man poses some obvious risks for Russia’s political system.

For more insight into how Putin’s war effort has changed the rules for Russia’s “old elites” and made them fear the prospect of peace, The Naked Pravda spoke to Farida Rustamova, an independent journalist who covers politics and power in Russia and writes the Substack newsletter Faridaily.

Time stamps for this episode:

• (2:42 The Shift in Russian Political Dynamics
• 04:54 Meduza’s Daily Newsletter Plug
• 05:41 Medvedev’s Transformation and Elite Adaptation
• 07:11 Fear and Repression Among Russian Officials
• 11:59 High-Level Shakeups and Political Loyalty
• 19:50 Concerns Over War’s End and Future Chaos
• 25:32 Skepticism About Peace Talks and Putin’s Image
• 27:56 Putin’s Concentration of Power and Future of Putinism

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

More than 500,000 Russians were granted visas to the European Union’s Schengen zone in 2024 — nearly half of which allow for multiple entry over many years. The visitor numbers are down by 90 percent compared with pre-pandemic 2019, but half a million people still isn’t nothing. And it’s about to seem astronomical, following a recent decision by the European Union to introduce a ban on multi-entry visas to the Schengen zone for Russian citizens.

Many have welcomed the E.U.’s new policy as long overdue, justifying the restrictions as a commonsense security measure and a morally righteous punishment for the citizens of a state terrorizing the continent and making war in Ukraine. That has not been the response from most Russian activists and journalists, however. For these people, Europe’s new multi-entry visa police will shatter the workflows and evacuation plans that had made it possible to continue limited forms of independent reporting and activism inside Russia.

To learn more about these repercussions, The Naked Pravda spoke to journalist and activist Elena Kostyuchenko, author of the 2023 book I Love Russia: Reporting From a Lost Country. In a November 10 social media post, Kostyuchenko laid out why her colleagues are “panicking” about the new E.U. visa policy. She joined Meduza’s podcast to break it down further.

Timestamps for this episode:

• (4:18) Challenges faced by Russian activists investigating war crimes against Ukraine
• (9:10) The European Union as a safe haven
• (19:14) Middle-class Russians and visa policies
• (25:16) Security concerns about the exiled opposition and espionage in Europe

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

Journalist Julia Ioffe returns to The Naked Pravda to discuss her new book, Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy, which was recently listed as a finalist for the National Book Award. Julia describes her years-long writing process, the blending of memoir and historical analysis, and the unique perspective provided by the narratives of women from the top echelons of Soviet and Russian society. The episode provides a detailed look at the complexities of Soviet and Russian feminism, making it a must-listen for anyone interested in this history and gender studies.

Timestamps for this episode:

• (2:25) Chronological structure and key figures
• (6:07) Stalin’s daughter: A metaphor for Russia
• (9:49) Challenges of historical accuracy
• (18:09) Balancing American paradigms and Russian perspectives
• (29:22) Class and cultural differences

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

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has now passed the three-and-a-half-year mark, and there is still no end in sight. The Trump administration’s recent push to negotiate a ceasefire ground to a halt in early September, after Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky rejected Vladimir Putin’s proposal to meet in Moscow, dismissing the invitation as a sign that his Russian counterpart has no desire to negotiate.

Meanwhile, on the battlefield in Ukraine, Russian troops are continuing their offensive in central Donbas. While Ukrainian forces have succeeded in slowing their advance, this has come at the cost of Kyiv’s defenses elsewhere, creating vulnerable gaps between frontline positions that Russian forces can slip through. With the front line becoming increasingly fluid and peace talks stalled, Russia has also continued to launch deadly missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities, targeting the country’s energy grid ahead of the approaching winter months. 

By all appearances, Putin believes that if Russia’s military keeps pushing forward, it will eventually outlast and overpower Ukraine. But how much longer can the Kremlin sustain its war machine? 

In a new report for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), senior fellow Maria Snegovaya and Europe, Russia, and Eurasia program director Max Bergmann break down the mounting costs of Russia’s war effort and outline four plausible scenarios for the war’s next chapter. Dr. Maria Snegovaya joins this episode of The Naked Pravda to discuss their analysis.

Time stamps for this episode:

• (2:05) The current state of the Russia–Ukraine war
• (4:49) Russia’s war strategy and unchanging goals
• (8:03) How sustainable is this war for the Kremlin?
• (13:12) How Russia is replenishing its military losses
• (17:30) Potential scenarios for the war’s future
• (26:55) Strategies for Ukraine and Western allies

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

In recent weeks, Estonia, Poland, and Romania have reported breaches of their airspace by Russian aircraft. Just this week, Norway revealed that Russian aircraft have violated its airspace three times this year after more than a decade without such intrusions. Last week, three Russian fighter jets reportedly violated Estonian airspace for 12 minutes, flying miles deep into Estonian territory with their transponders off. The most extreme incident was in Poland, where NATO allies shot down four of roughly 19 Russian drones that wandered in from Belarus. Warsaw vows to shoot down any more Russian aircraft that violate its airspace, setting the stage for an incident similar to what happened nearly 10 years ago, when the Turkish Air Force downed a Russian bomber near the Syrian–Turkish border.

The Naked Pravda spoke to Dr. Olga Oliker, the program director for Europe and Central Asia at Crisis Group, about the escalating tensions in Eastern Europe and how the situation compares to the downed bomber in Syria in November 2015.

Timestamps for this episode:

• (4:31) The dynamics of Russia’s airspace incursions and NATO’s response
• (9:22) Escalation risks and strategic implications
• (15:07) Comparing past and present: Lessons from 2015
• (20:27) NATO’s preparedness and future strategies

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

On June 25, NATO leaders agreed at their annual summit on a goal of spending five percent of their gross domestic product on defense, more than doubling the old two-percent target. It’s unclear how many members will actually reach this goal. Even the target relies on some creative accounting: of the five percent, only 3.5 percent is pledged to what officials call “pure” defense spending, with the remainder going to security and defense-related “critical infrastructure.”

Ahead of the NATO summit, The New Yorker published “Collective Punishment: Why is Donald Trump upending America’s commitment to NATO?” a story by contributing writer Joshua Yaffa, the author of the 2021 Orwell Prize-winning book “Between Two Fires: Truth, Ambition, and Compromise in Putin’s Russia.” In his new article, Yaffa describes how the looming threats of Russian aggression and American withdrawal are pressuring European leaders to reassess their approach to NATO and their broader defense strategies. He joined this episode of The Naked Pravda to discuss the story.

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

Historian Benjamin Nathans joins The Naked Pravda to discuss his new book, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement (Princeton University Press, August 2024). In the post-Stalin USSR, when the regime seemed eternal and there was little tradition of resistance to totalitarianism, citizens who came up against the arbitrary Soviet justice system had to invent their own strategies for effecting change. Nathans looks beyond the familiar stories of figures like Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn to explore how the dissident movement coalesced, and what that history can tell us today.

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

Anthropologist Jeremy Morris joins The Naked Pravda to discuss his latest book, Everyday Politics in Russia: From Resentment to Resistance (Bloomsbury, March 2025). The conversation explores Morris’s extensive fieldwork across urban, regional, and rural Russia to understand how society has responded to the collapse of the USSR, capitalist social Darwinism, and the ongoing war in Ukraine. He shares insights into his ethnographic methods, emphasizing the importance of embedded, long-term relationships and the distinction between social suffering and geopolitical resentment. Morris also critiques the limitations and biases of polling data in news coverage and underscores the need for more diverse voices in understanding contemporary Russian society.

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