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

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 defenses

Как 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 today

Как 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 attacks

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