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

A new investigative report published jointly by Meduza and The Bell looks closely at Rostec, one of Russia’s key state corporations, and its campaign to exert control over the public discourse on Telegram about Rostec’s operations and executives. Rostec is responsible for developing, manufacturing, and exporting high-tech products in aviation, mechanical engineering, radio electronics, medical technology, and a lot more. This is the Kremlin’s arms conglomerate, controlling outfits like the Kalashnikov Concern, Uralvagonzavod, Avtovaz, and many more factories that make the war machines now wreaking havoc in Ukraine.

Rostec is as serious as they come, and its long-time CEO, Sergey Chemezov, has been running the show since 2007 since the state corporation was founded in 2007. The history between Chemezov and Vladimir Putin goes back to the 1980s when the two were both Soviet intelligence agents in Dresden. So why does an enterprise with so much clout bother with bloggers on Telegram? And what does it say about the information available to Russians in an age without an independent press? Journalist Svetlana Reiter, who coauthored Meduza’s report on Rostec and Telegram, joins The Naked Pravda to discuss the story.

Timestamps for this episode:

• (6:48) What’s so special about Vasily Brovko, Rostec’s director of special assignments
• (10:09) What’s so special about Telegram in Russia?
• (13:37) Fighting extortion albeit with ulterior motives
• (23:03) Anonymity on Telegram or a lack thereof

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

In a new investigative report, journalists at Mediazona counted 536 service-related felony cases filed in Russian garrison courts against soldiers since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine started last year. Most of these charges involve AWOL offenses, often resulting in probation sentences that allow offenders to return to combat. More serious crimes include refusal to obey orders, striking a commanding officer, and outright desertion.

Citing national-security grounds (and orders from Russia’s Defense Ministry and Federal Security Service), military courts frequently conceal information about cases involving “crimes against military service.” Mediazona dug through available records and spoke to attorneys to learn what it could about this growing wave of insubordination among Russian troops.

To discuss the investigation, Mediazona reporter and data-team journalist David Frenkel joined The Naked Pravda.

Timestamps for this episode:

• (4:02) Why Putin doesn’t rescind his mobilization execution order
• (8:51) Is AWOL the most common offense by Russian soldiers or merely what Russia’s military courts prefer to prosecute?
• (14:52) Rational choice if you’re a Russian soldier who doesn’t want to fight in Ukraine
• (16:39) Morale and discipline
• (24:54) Conscientious objection
• (26:39) Show trials and judges’ “preventative talks” with soldiers

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

Show host Kevin Rothrock revisits noteworthy news stories in Russia from mid-March 2023 and celebrates 99 episodes of The Naked Pravda by reading some listener feedback.

Timestamps for this episode:

• (0:01) Evgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group paramilitary cartel starts recruiting on Pornhub
• (2:26) Russia knocks an American UAV into the Black Sea
• (3:52) The Russian Orthodox deacon who turned to Afro-Brazilian mysticism and invented a wife to cohost his anti-Ukrainian hate blog
• (5:44) How Kirill Butylin got sentenced to 13 years in prison for throwing Molotov cocktails at an army recruitment center
• (7:41) The story of Masha Moskaleva, the sixth grader taken from father after she turned in an anti-war drawing for art class
• (12:19) The latest srach (shitstorm) within the Russian opposition sparks a debate about sanctions relief and exit routes for “good oligarchs”
• (14:52) To celebrate 99 episodes of The Naked Pravda, Kevin shares some reviews from listeners

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

Late last month, there was a sudden and brief explosion of news reports in Russia and Ukraine about an ascendant youth movement of violence supposedly built around the subculture of anime fans. According to vague stories in the media, fistfights were breaking out at shopping malls and other public places as part of a transnational campaign by something called “PMC Ryodan.”

After a large fight in St. Petersburg led to dozens of arrests of Ryodan and anti-Ryodan youths, a federal lawmaker in the State Duma even appealed publicly to Russia’s Interior Ministry, demanding a ban on all content associated with “PMC Ryodan.” There was mass police action in Ukraine, too, where officials called PMC Ryodan an instrument of “Russian propagandists” leading an “informational-psychological operation” to “destabilize the internal situation in Ukraine.”

It turns out that the hysteria surrounding this youth subculture almost completely misunderstood the sporadic violence. Semantically, the first thing to grasp is that “PMC,” or private military company, is used facetiously when describing the Ryodan group. Members of this anime fan community are actually more likely to be the targets — not the instigators — of the brawls breaking out at youth hangouts. In fact, it seems the group got its “PMC” nickname after its followers started fighting back against the jocks who like to bully them.

The PMC Ryodan scare was especially perplexing abroad, where casual observers typically view Russian youth culture through the lens of a pro-Kremlin/anti-Kremlin dichotomy. But most young people in Russia, just like most people anywhere, don’t live and breathe polemics at every moment of the day with every fiber of their being. So, what can we say about Russia’s youth culture beyond the familiar Kremlin-based divide? The Naked Pravda asked two scholars for answers.

Timestamps for this episode:

• (6:41) Dr. Kristiina Silvan, a postdoctoral fellow in the Russia, EU’s Eastern Neighborhood, and Eurasia research program at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, describes the differences between contemporary Western sociological methodologies and research approaches from the USSR.
• (10:06) Dr. Felix Krawatzek, a senior researcher at the Center for East European and International Studies in Berlin, compares survey studies and fieldwork.
• (13:04) The political vs. apolitical
• (22:34) Russian-language culture and subcultures spreading internationally online
• (25:31) The significance of so-called “soccer hooligans” and gopniki
• (32:13) The 1990s as a reference point

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