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 sales

Как 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 records

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

Moscow and Kyiv have traded allegations that the other side is planning a disastrous attack on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant that they warn could cause a major radiological event. Last week, Ukrainian President Zelensky warned that Russian occupation forces have placed “objects resembling explosives” on some rooftops at the power station, “perhaps to simulate an attack on the plant.” Officials in Moscow, on the other hand, have their own allegations, claiming that Ukraine plans to frame Russian troops for an attack on the plant.

Meanwhile, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency are on the ground but still aren’t getting unrestricted access. On July 7, the IAEA reported that they visited the isolation gate separating the cooling pond from what remains of the Kakhovka reservoir after the destruction of the downstream dam a month ago. They found no leakage from the pond, and they’ve observed no visible indications of mines or explosives anywhere inside the plant, but they still haven’t been allowed onto the rooftops of reactor units 3 and 4 and parts of the turbine halls.

To make sense of these reports and to respond to the panic that this situation provokes, The Naked Pravda welcomes back nuclear arms expert Pavel Podvig, a senior researcher at the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research.

Timestamps for this episode:

• (4:37) Why it’s wrong to fear a repeat of the Chernobyl or Fukushima disasters at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant
• (9:48) Disagreements among nuclear experts about the dangers now in Ukraine
• (13:06) Weighing the reports and allegations from Moscow and Kyiv
• (18:22) Escalating rhetoric about nuclear weapons in Russia’s foreign-policy expert community
• (23:12) Why there are probably no Russian nukes in Belarus, at least not yet

Как 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 West

Как 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 war

Как 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 daughter

Как 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 forward

Как 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 censorship

Как 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 partners

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