It’s a tense moment for Ukraine. The optimism that followed Ukraine’s early successes on the battlefield in 2022 started to fade last summer as its counteroffensive failed to achieve a breakthrough. By late 2023, Ukraine’s then-commander-in-chief said the war had reached a “stalemate” — and by the start of the spring, things were looking even worse, with high-ranking Ukrainian officers warning a collapse of the front lines could be imminent without more weapons from Washington. In mid-April, U.S. lawmakers finally passed a $60-billion aid package, buying Ukraine some time and some hope. But Ukraine’s defense still faces major headwinds, and Russian forces have continued gradually advancing along various sections of the front line in recent weeks.

Amid this enormous uncertainty, a new report from the International Crisis Group titled “Ukraine: How to Hold the Line” aims to distill the lessons of the past year for Ukraine and its backers. According to Simon Schlegel, the group’s senior Ukraine analyst, if Ukraine and its partners take these lessons into account, Russia’s aggression is “likely to fail” — but applying them will be anything but easy.

Schlegel joined The Naked Pravda to discuss Crisis Group’s recommendations for Kyiv and its supporters and the stakes for the wider region if Ukraine fails to hold the line against Russia.

Timestamps for this episode:

• (1:33) Stakes for Ukraine and Europe
• (6:41) Western military aid: Incrementalism and its impact
• (9:47) European allies: Preparedness and challenges
• (12:25) Advanced weapons systems: Training and deployment issues
• (16:59) Planning for contingencies: Ukraine’s efforts and limitations
• (20:34) Negotiation prospects
• (24:54) Putin’s mixed signals: Peace talks and nuclear threats

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

For the past two months, millions of Kazakhstanis have been glued to their screens, witnessing a landmark moment in the nation’s history: a murder trial live-streamed on YouTube. This was the trial of Kuandyk Bishimbayev, Kazakhstan’s former economic minister, who was convicted of torturing and killing his wife, Saltanat Nukenova, on November 9, 2023. The brutal CCTV footage of the incident went viral, not just within Kazakhstan but internationally as well. This trial not only highlighted Saltanat Nukenova’s tragic case but also shined a glaring spotlight on Kazakhstan’s chronic issues with domestic violence.

To learn more about the case and its wider significance, Meduza intern Ekaterina Rahr-Bohr and Meduza senior news editor Sam Breazeale spoke to Century College political scientist Dr. Colleen Wood, human rights activist and NeMolchiKZ founder Dinara Smailova, and The Village Kazakhstan editor-in-chief Aleksandra Akanaeva.

Timestamps for this episode:

• (6:33) The role of social media and public sentiment
• (9:51) The impact of “Saltanat’s law”
• (16:41) Broader issues of domestic violence in Kazakhstan
• (26:00) The role of NGOs and activists
• (28:55) Dinara Smailova’s personal stories
• (36:34) The need for systemic changes

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

Historically, Ukraine has been home to people of a variety of faiths and religious denominations, and it’s been exceptionally “open to receiving a wide spectrum of religious communities” in the years since the collapse of the U.S.S.R, according to expert Catherine Wanner.

This laissez-faire approach to religion stands in stark contrast to Russian state policy, which claims to embrace religious pluralism while systematically repressing religious liberty. In Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, experts have documented at least 76 incidents of religious persecution since the full-scale war began in February 2022, including forced conversion, abduction, and murder.

This persecution, which some experts say may constitute a “systematic” campaign, has affected Ukrainians of a number of faiths, including Orthodox Christians, Catholics, and Muslims. But members of one group have been especially likely to face repressions: Protestants, despite making up between two and four percent of Ukraine’s population, were the victims of 34 percent of cases of religious persecution, as writer Peter Pomerantsev noted in his article “Russia’s War Against Evangelicals,” published in Time last month. This includes evangelical Baptists, who were the most likely denomination to face persecution after Ukrainian Orthodox believers.

Russia’s disproportionate targeting of evangelical Christians in Ukraine is no coincidence. One Ukrainian pastor quoted in Pomerantsev’s article summed up the occupation authorities’ mindset like this: “You are the American faith, the Americans are our enemies, [and] the enemies must be destroyed.”

To learn more about Russia’s violent campaign against Ukrainian evangelicals and one organization’s efforts to raise awareness about it in the United States, Meduza senior news editor Sam Breazeale spoke to Steven Moore and Anna Shvetsova from the humanitarian aid organization the Ukraine Freedom Project, and Catherine Wanner, a professor of history and religious studies at Penn State University who studies religious life in Ukraine.

Timestamps for this episode:

• (2:30) Exploring Ukraine’s religious landscape since 1991
• (9:31) The persecution of Protestants in occupied Ukraine
• (26:14) The Role of the Russian Orthodox Church in the conflict
• (27:24) Navigating political disinformation and support for Ukraine in the U.S.

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

It’s strange days recently at Russia’s Defense Ministry. Amid the replacement of the agency’s head, police have brought large-scale bribery charges against at least two senior officials in the Defense Ministry, raising questions about the state of corruption in Russia’s military and the Kremlin’s approach to the phenomenon in wartime. 

Also earlier this month, the American Political Science Review published relevant new research by political scientist David Szakonyi, an assistant professor at George Washington University and a co-founder of the Anti-Corruption Data Collective. In the article, titled “Corruption and Co-Optation in Autocracy: Evidence from Russia,” Dr. Szakonyi explores if corrupt State Duma deputies “govern differently” and tries to establish what the governing costs of such corruption might be. The methodology he uses will be familiar to The Naked Pravda’s listeners who know the techniques of anti-corruption activists like the researchers at Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation.

Dr. Szakonyi joins this week’s podcast to discuss his findings in the context of a major “anti-corruption moment” for Russia’s Armed Forces.

Timestamps for this episode:

• (3:26) Is this a story about corrupt politicians writ large or specifically in authoritarian states?
• (4:55) Explaining the paper’s methodology
• (13:09) The demographics of State Duma corruption
• (14:21) How the Kremlin co-opts corrupt officials and even welcomes them into politics
• (17:35) The State Duma as a “rubber stamp” legislature
• (19:53) “High politics” and “low politics”
• (21:32) The role of Russia’s security services
• (23:34) Exhaustion with anti-corruption revelations

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

The leadup to voting this November will renew fears in the United States about Russian malign influence. That means more paranoia from politicians, more alarming op-eds and white papers from the institutes created and funded to draw attention to foreign disinformation, and more mutual suspicions among ordinary people on social media, where journalists and pundits often draw their anecdotal conclusions about popular opinion.

This week, for a skeptical view of the foreign disinformation threat in America, The Naked Pravda welcomes Gavin Wilde, an adjunct faculty member at the Alperovitch Institute, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and a former director for Russia, Baltic, and Caucasus Affairs at the U.S. National Security Council.

Together with Olga Belogolova, Lee Foster, and Thomas Rid, Wilde recently coauthored “Don’t Hype the Disinformation Threat: Downplaying the Risk Helps Foreign Propagandists — but So Does Exaggerating It” in Foreign Affairs. About a month earlier, he also wrote an article in the Texas National Security Review, titled “From Panic to Policy: The Limits of Foreign Propaganda and the Foundations of an Effective Response.” In this week’s episode, Wilde talked about both of these essays.

Timestamps for this episode:

• (3:51) Talking to those who believe that foreign disinformation threatens to undo U.S. democracy
• (7:32) The profit incentives behind counter-disinformation work
• (10:43) Shifting geopolitical adversaries in counter-disinformation work
• (13:26) Cognitive information threats
• (16:56) Deconversion from the ‘Period of Panic’
• (20:12) Hard-science methodologies and ontologies
• (22:49) When does downplaying foreign disinformation become dangerous?
• (25:23) The challenges of U.S. partisan subjectivity

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

Over the past few weeks, many in the think-tank community have argued about the negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv in the first two months of the full-scale invasion, following an article published on April 16 in Foreign Affairs, titled “The Talks That Could Have Ended the War in Ukraine: A Hidden History of Diplomacy That Came Up Short — but Holds Lessons for Future Negotiations,” by Samuel Charap, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, and Sergey Radchenko, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Europe.

In their article, Charap and Radchenko acknowledge that today’s prospects for negotiations “appear dim and relations between the parties are nearly nonexistent,” but they argue that the “mutual willingness” of both Putin and Zelensky in March and April 2022 “to consider far-reaching concessions to end the war” suggest that these two leaders “might well surprise everyone again in the future.” Charap and Radchenko joined The Naked Pravda to talk about this largely forgotten diplomacy, as well as the reactions to their research and what it might reveal in the years ahead.

Timestamps for this episode:

• (2:27) Summary of the Foreign Affairs article
• (4:46) Entertaining the idea that Russia negotiated in good faith
• (7:41) If Putin was open to concessions during early setbacks, could the West hope for leverage again?
• (12:51) Criticism from Poland’s think-tank community
• (15:13) Lessons and recommendations for tomorrow’s parallel-track diplomacy?
• (20:40) The biggest surprises in this research
• (26:46) The shape of a possible peace to come

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

According to a new investigation from Novaya Gazeta Europe, Chechnya Governor Ramzan Kadyrov was diagnosed with pancreatic necrosis in 2019 and isn’t long for this world. Since then, he’s supposedly undergone “regular procedures,” including surgeries, at an elite hospital in Moscow. A bout of COVID-19 in 2020 reportedly further degraded his health, kicking off another round of sudden weight loss. His kidneys reportedly started to fail and fluid built up in his lungs, making it difficult for him to speak and walk. After Novaya released the first part of this investigation, Kadyrov’s Telegram channel shared its first video in five days, posting footage of Kadyrov meeting with his cabinet to discuss the war in Ukraine.

Kadyrov’s speech is slurred and he barely moves. He doesn’t look good. He looks like the title character in Weekend at Bernie’s. 

Novaya Gazeta has released two more installments in this story since that first report, and a fourth article is due out soon. On this week’s episode of The Naked Pravda, Meduza spoke to journalist Kirill Martynov, the editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta Europe, to dig into these revelations and learn more about the predicament of Russia’s second-worst autocrat.

Timestamps for this episode:

• (5:02) Why is Ramzan Kadyrov so hard to replace as head of Chechnya?
• (10:31) What’s so special about Major General Apti Alaudinov, the commander of the “Akhmat” Chechen Volunteer Special Forces Association?
• (15:18) Protecting Kadyrov’s sons by putting them in the limelight
• (20:01) Novaya Gazeta Europe’s sources for this investigation

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

It’s no secret that the economies of Central Asian countries like Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan rely heavily on labor migration to stay afloat. In 2022, according to the International Organization for Migration, remittances from Russia accounted for just over half of Tajikistan’s GDP, and made up more than 20 percent of the GDPs of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Many of the workers sending these remittances are their families’ sole breadwinner — and given the lack of employment opportunities at home, working in Russia is often their best option, even if means dealing with a maze of bureaucracy and relentless discrimination. 

The aftermath of last month’s terrorist attack in Moscow has brought the xenophobia that Central Asian migrants face in Russia back into the spotlight, with media outlets reporting on a surge in blatant discrimination and, in some cases, targeted violence. Meanwhile, the Russian authorities have launched a renewed crackdown on migrant workers. This is despite the fact that Russia, with its shrinking population and labor shortage made worse by the war, needs migrants to keep its economy functioning.

To learn about Russia’s migration policy under Vladimir Putin and how the xenophobic backlash to last month’s attack has affected ethnic and religious minorities, The Naked Pravda spoke to Moscow Times special correspondent Leyla Latypova; Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center fellow Temur Umarov; and political scientist Caress Schenk, an associate professor at Nazarbayev University.

And be sure to check out Temur Umarov’s previous appearance on The Naked Pravda: How Russia pressures Central Asian migrants into military service.

Timestamps for this episode:

• (2:35) Xenophobia in the wake of the Crocus City Hall attack
• (16:55) Russia’s dependence on migrant labor
• (27:35) How Russia uses migration policy for political aims
• (31:25) The migration-extremism fallacy
• (39:13) The long-term effects of Russia’s current migration crackdown

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

Look at almost any recent major news story from Russia, and you’ll find the Federal Security Service, better known as the FSB. Having failed to prevent the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack in Moscow last month, the agency has played a major role in arresting and apparently torturing the suspected perpetrators. It was FSB agents who arrested Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on espionage charges just over a year ago. And the FSB has been heavily involved in enforcing Russia’s crackdowns on dissent and LGBTQ+ rights.

At the same time, the FSB is inextricably linked to Moscow’s war against Ukraine. After years of carrying out subversive activities there, it provided Putin with key (though apparently misleading) intel that led him to launch his full-scale invasion in 2022. Since then, its agents have facilitated the deportation of Ukrainian children, tortured an untold number of Ukrainian civilians in so-called “torture chambers,” and tried to plant former ISIS members in Ukrainian battalions.

And let’s not forget that Putin himself was shaped by his career in the FSB’s predecessor agency, the Soviet-era KGB. Putin’s rise to power was defined by his image as a strong man who could ensure security and stability. Since assuming the presidency, he’s given himself direct authority over the FSB and steadily expanded its ability to surveil and repress Russian citizens.

To learn about the Russian FSB’s evolution over the last three decades, its operations in Russia and beyond, and its possible future after Putin, Meduza in English senior news editor Sam Breazeale spoke to Dr. Kevin Riehle, an expert in foreign intelligence services and the author of The Russian FSB: A Concise History of the Federal Security Service.

Timestamps for this episode:

• (3:13) Decoding the FSB: Structure, mission, and operations
• (5:58) The evolution of Russian national security: From KGB to FSB
• (14:36) Corruption and ideology: The FSB’s internal struggle
• (23:31) The FSB’s foreign reach and domestic repression
• (38:49) The agency’s post-Putin future

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

It’s been seven weeks since a local branch of Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service published a brief news post about the death of opposition leader Alexey Navalny. “He went for a walk, felt sick, collapsed unconscious, and couldn’t be resuscitated.” Russian officials would later insist that Navalny died of natural causes — his mother was told that he succumbed to “sudden death syndrome.” In mid-March, while celebrating his claim on a fifth presidential term, Vladimir Putin finally uttered Navalny’s name in public but only to dance on his grave, claiming that he was ready to trade him off to the West, provided he never came back. “But unfortunately, what happened happened. What can you do? That’s life,” said Putin.

This week, The Naked Pravda looks back at Navalny’s career in politics and ahead to the political future of his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, by speaking to two of the people most responsible for educating the English-speaking world about his work: filmmaker Daniel Roher, whose documentary on Navalny won an Oscar last year, and journalist Julia Ioffe, who was one of the first Western reporters to write about Navalny and who’s tracked him and his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, in numerous articles for more a decade, profiling them in stories for The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. Ioffe is also the author of the forthcoming book “Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy,” now available for preorder.

Timestamps for this episode:

• (1:55) How Daniel Roher started filming Team Navalny
• (10:15) Roher’s goals when making the “Navalny” documentary
• (11:51) Choosing a literary trope for the Navalny story
• (15:02) Did anyone try to talk Navalny out of returning to Moscow?
• (19:39) Filming Navalny’s nationalism
• (22:37) Rethinking the film after Navalny’s death
• (24:21) Julia Ioffe remembers meeting Alexey Navalny for the first time
• (29:47) Ioffe reviews Navalny’s views on nationalism and Ukraine
• (36:15) Looking ahead to Yulia Navalnaya and back at past revolutionary women

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