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No Limit Leadership is the go-to podcast for growth-minded executives, middle managers, and team leaders who want more than surface-level leadership advice. Hosted by executive coach and former Special Forces commander Sean Patton, this show explores modern leadership, self-leadership, and the real-world strategies that build high-performing teams. Whether you're focused on leadership development, building a coaching culture, improving leadership communication, or strengthening team accountability, each episode equips you with actionable insights to unlock leadership potential across your organization. From designing onboarding systems that retain talent to asking better questions that drive clarity and impact, No Limit Leadership helps you lead yourself first so you can lead others better. If you're ready to create a culture of ownership, resilience, and results, this leadership podcast is for you.
Content provided by Meduza.io. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Meduza.io or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://player.fm/legal.
Every day we bring you the most important news and feature stories from hundreds of sources in Russia and across the former Soviet Union.
Content provided by Meduza.io. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Meduza.io or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://player.fm/legal.
Every day we bring you the most important news and feature stories from hundreds of sources in Russia and across the former Soviet Union.
Coffins containing the bodies of the Safarov brothers at the Baku airport terminal. June 30, 2025. Russia and Azerbaijan are embroiled in an ongoing diplomatic row. In late June, Russian authorities carried out mass arrests targeting members of the Azerbaijani diaspora in Yekaterinburg that left two people dead. Baku responded in an unexpectedly sharp manner, canceling most cultural events linked to Russia and arresting two executives from the Russian propaganda outlet Sputnik Azerbaijan, along with eight other Russian citizens, on charges of drug trafficking and cybercrime. Azerbaijani state propaganda has played a key role in the escalating tensions, accusing Vladimir Putin and Russian society of imperialism and racism. Meduza spoke with Orkhan Mammad , a journalist with the exiled Azerbaijani publication Meydan TV , to understand how Azerbaijan’s propaganda works, which red lines it avoids, and why state media continues to take a pro-Russian stance on the war in Ukraine. Orkhan Mammad — How has Azerbaijani propaganda responded to the police raids targeting Azerbaijanis in Yekaterinburg? And why have the country’s authorities jumped on the issue so forcefully? — Over the past week, Azerbaijani propaganda media outlets have made Russia out to be the [country’s] biggest enemy. We know that police beatings are nothing new in Russia, but this time, to my surprise, Azerbaijan’s government responded with unusual force. Now, the messaging from propaganda media is that Russia has always treated Azerbaijanis through a racist lens. One [National Assembly] deputy [Aydin Huseynov, of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party] said that “Russians look down on us,” while another [Tahir Kerimli of the Unity Party] called Putin responsible for the Russian government’s anti-Azerbaijani policies. The overarching propaganda message is this: “The Russians have always treated us this way. They’ve always arrested us, always beaten us. But now we’re powerful, and we’re pushing back. We have an army. We have everything. We won the war [in Karabakh].” After the [December 2024] Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane crash , propaganda outlets also criticized Russia and demanded that the Kremlin apologize to Baku. At the time, [Azerbaijani President] Ilham Aliyev was furious with Putin — six months went by, and the Kremlin still hadn’t issued an apology, even though [Aliyev] had publicly demanded one multiple times and called on the Russian president to take responsibility. That clearly enraged Aliyev. And that’s why we’re seeing blood on the faces of Russian detainees in Baku, a sharp diplomatic escalation, and an aggressive propaganda campaign. Just recently, [Azerbaijani] propaganda media showed a written statement from the Russian officer who gave the order to shoot down the Azerbaijan Airlines plane. Why hold onto it for six months and release it only now? Clearly, Azerbaijan is using everything at its disposal against Russia. We’ve never seen tensions this high. Maybe the people detained in Yekaterinburg really were part of a gang, but again, the intensity of Aliyev’s reaction says one thing: he is genuinely furious. And for now, Azerbaijan shows no signs of backing down from this escalation. At the same time, Azerbaijani propaganda avoids criticizing Putin personally — I think that’s a red line. But they are going after figures like [Russia Today editor-in-chief Margarita] Simonyan and portraying Russians as enemies more broadly. The trigger Tit-for-tat arrests Two Azerbaijani suspects died in Russian police custody, triggering reciprocal arrests and escalating tensions between Moscow and Baku — Why has Russia decided to escalate the diplomatic crisis? What other levers of pressure does the Kremlin have over Baku? — One possible reason for Russia’s escalation, at least initially, is the Zangezur Corridor deal, which Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan agreed on without the Kremlin’s involvement. Perhaps the Russian authorities want Azerbaijan to stop building the corridor with financial support from the United States — or, for example, to include a clause in the agreement granting Russia control over the corridor. But as it stands, Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan are building the corridor with U.S. financial support, and Russia is not part of the project. We’re also seeing signs of improved relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. In late June, [Armenian Prime Minister Nikol] Pashinyan visited Turkey, following a visit from Aliyev just one day earlier. And on July 4, [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan is visiting Azerbaijan. The Kremlin crushed Meduza’s business model and wiped out our ad revenue. We’ve been blocked and outlawed in Russia, where donating to us or even sharing our posts is a crime. But we’re still here — bringing independent journalism to millions of our readers inside Russia and around the world. Meduza’s survival is under threat — again. Donald Trump’s foreign aid freeze has slashed funding for international groups backing press freedom. Meduza was hurt too. It’s yet another blow in our ongoing struggle to survive. You could be our lifeline. Please, help Meduza survive with a small recurring donation. Russian propaganda media began talking a lot about Aliyev’s son Heydar’s unpaid taxes in Russia — a rather sensitive topic for the Azerbaijani president. Russia also opened a criminal case for tax evasion against Aras Agalarov, a close associate of Aliyev and the owner of the Crocus City Hall [concert venue in Moscow]. There are millions of Azerbaijanis living in Russia. And if the Russian government decided to deport thousands of people, I have no doubt it could. Many Azerbaijanis in Russia may lack the proper documents to reside in the country legally. There are also substantial remittances flowing from Russia to Azerbaijan. People work in Moscow and send money home — we’re talking about millions of dollars. If Russia were to restrict those money transfers, Azerbaijan would face serious economic problems. This is exactly why Baku’s past anti-Russian propaganda campaigns have typically ended after five to seven days. Azerbaijan knows how dependent it is on Russia. the plane crash Was Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer jet shot down? Marks on the plane’s exterior suggest it was hit by military air defenses. Meduza considers the evidence. — What role does the war in Ukraine play in Azerbaijani propaganda? Has the coverage of Russia’s invasion changed? Has it become more pro-Ukrainian? — Azerbaijani propaganda media are actually quite pro-Russian. They cover the invasion of Ukraine mostly from Russia’s point of view — and those of us in independent media often criticize them for that. But whenever tensions arise between Azerbaijan and Russia, the propagandists start giving more attention to the Ukrainian side. Overall, the propaganda media in Azerbaijan try not to criticize Russia over the war. They try to maintain a balance, because Baku still has ties with Kyiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky even called Aliyev recently to express support after the police raids in Yekaterinburg. But the propagandists will never say that Russia violated another country’s sovereignty and invaded it — or condemn the actions of the Russian military. They’ve never done that. Russia remains the center of attention for [Azerbaijani] propaganda because it’s seen as a “strategic partner.” I’m sure that even amid the current crisis, Putin will continue to maintain a friendship with Aliyev. Tomorrow, they’ll meet again, help each other, and do business together. Putin handed Aliyev Stepanakert and withdrew Russian troops from Nagorno-Karabakh. In recent years, Azerbaijan and Russia have really presented themselves as close friends. Nagorno-Karabakh Slowly, then all at once The final act in the tragedy of Nagorno-Karabakh’s collapse — How has civil society responded to the crisis between Russia and Azerbaijan? — It hasn’t. We have a lot of other problems inside the country that need to be solved right now. Aliyev is arresting journalists. There are already 375 political prisoners in Azerbaijan. There’s no freedom in the country and there’s a lot of social tension. You could say that only people in Baku have any money, while the regions are in very bad shape. One family has held power for 40 years — and this in an oil-rich country. When authoritarian regimes don’t want to address internal problems, they follow a familiar pattern: they look for enemies, either foreign or domestic. Yesterday it was Armenia, today it’s Russia, tomorrow it’ll be Iran. A couple of months ago, Baku’s relations with Tehran soured — and now they’re friends again. Azerbaijani civil society doesn’t take part in propaganda campaigns, including the ones targeting Armenians. It’s always opposed the war with Armenia. And that’s exactly why the government is angry with us: we didn’t support the war in Karabakh. That’s why Aliyev destroyed civil society in this country. crackdowns ‘A suicide mission’ Anti-war activists explain the challenges of protesting in Azerbaijan…
The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office has filed legal proceedings seeking to outlaw the “international Satanism movement” as an extremist group, the state news agency TASS reported on Friday. The lawsuit, which is now slated for a court hearing on July 22, marks the second time Russian authorities have moved to ban an “extremist movement” that does not seem to exist. Russia outlawed the “international LGBT movement” as extremist in November 2023. The Prosector General’s Office claims that the Satanic group it is now seeking to ban is also known as the “international Satanists’ movement.” While various occult movements and cults linked to Satanism do exist around the world, Meduza was unable to find any open-source evidence of an “international Satanism movement.” Russian Orthodox Church head Patriarch Kirill first floated the idea of designating Satanism as an illegal “extremist movement” in January 2025. Backstory So, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church wants to ban Satanism Meduza explains how the crackdown would expand ‘anti-extremism’ policing and expose new ideological hypocrisies…
Shirak Diocese head Mikael Adjapakhyan (in light-colored clothing) shortly before his arrest. Catholicos Karekin II is in the left corner. June 27, 2025. On June 27, officers from Armenia’s National Security Service attempted to storm the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, a monastic complex near Yerevan that serves as the residence of Catholicos Karekin II, the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC). They were searching for Mikael Adjapakhyan, head of the Church’s Shirak Diocese, whom state investigators had accused of calling to overthrow the government, and they soon found and detained him. Two days earlier, another archbishop, Bagrat Galstanyan — who had led protests in the spring and summer of 2024 — was arrested on similar charges. Billionaire Samvel Karapetyan was also detained for publicly supporting the AAC. For Meduza, Caucasus expert Roman Chernikov explains why Nikol Pashinyan has launched this unprecedented confrontation with Armenia’s clergy — and where it could lead. How the church became Armenia’s main opposition force If you look back at Armenian media coverage of the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC) in 2018–2019, it’s striking that open conflict between the church and Nikol Pashinyan’s government didn’t break out sooner. As early as fall 2018, just months after Pashinyan took office, he told supporters at a campaign event: The church has never been as discredited as it was during the Republican Party’s rule. [Previous Armenian Prime Minister] Serzh Sargsyan and his team tried to turn the church into an arm of the government — and in some cases, they succeeded. They even involved members of the clergy in corruption. For its part, the Republican Party was already describing the AAC as “an inseparable part of Armenian identity” that was now under threat from the new authorities. Meanwhile, media outlets linked to the old elites were spreading rumors that Pashinyan and his wife were members of one of the Protestant churches that are often labeled “sects” in the post-Soviet space. Even International Affairs, a magazine directly affiliated with Russia’s Foreign Ministry, sounded the alarm: Nikol Pashinyan’s party is actively supported by members of numerous sects (Jehovah’s Witnesses, Word of Life, Pentecostals, Horan, Mormons, the Evangelical Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and others) who work closely with the U.S. Embassy, as well as with LGBT activists and other easily manipulated groups. Pashinyan, however, insisted that he belonged to the Armenian Apostolic Church and was ready to fight against these “sects.” The Kremlin crushed Meduza’s business model and wiped out our ad revenue. We’ve been blocked and outlawed in Russia, where donating to us or even sharing our posts is a crime. But we’re still here — bringing independent journalism to millions of our readers inside Russia and around the world. Meduza’s survival is under threat — again. Donald Trump’s foreign aid freeze has slashed funding for international groups backing press freedom. Meduza was hurt too. It’s yet another blow in our ongoing struggle to survive. You could be our lifeline. Please, help Meduza survive with a small recurring donation. BBC reported in detail on a telling episode that occurred during this period. In May 2018, a priest named Koryun Arakelyan spoke out against Catholicos Karekin II and launched a movement called “New Armenia — New Patriarch.” He publicly accused the Catholicos of breaking his vow of celibacy, but his main charges concerned Karekin’s alleged wealth and authoritarian leadership. According to Arakelyan, he expected support from Pashinyan, but it never came. On the contrary, BBC sources said the newly appointed officials were instructed not to publicly criticize the clergy. This was no surprise: having already taken on the old elites and launched an anti-corruption campaign, Pashinyan didn’t want to make things even harder for himself. His top priorities in 2018 were holding snap elections; in 2019, prosecuting former president Robert Kocharyan; and in 2020, confronting the Constitutional Court — and then came the war in Karabakh . The end of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict Slowly, then all at once The final act in the tragedy of Nagorno-Karabakh’s collapse After Armenia’s defeat in that conflict, the government’s problems only deepened. In December 2020, Catholicos Karekin II, for the first time, publicly called on Pashinyan to resign. He would repeat that demand over and over , but to no avail. Despite Pashinyan’s low approval ratings , his potential rivals — including figures close to former presidents Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan — were even less popular. And so, strange as it may seem, the main opposition to Armenia’s government wasn’t a political party at all — it was the Church. Who is Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan? Since Armenia’s defeat in the 2020 war, there have been many attempts to deal a decisive blow to Pashinyan’s rule — but all of them have faltered for lack of a charismatic leader. Former presidents Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan tended to alienate protesters rather than unite them, while other figures lacked both public recognition and personal appeal. At one point in early 2021, the opposition’s expected candidate for prime minister was Vazgen Manukyan , a former defense minister. Then, however, he was charged with calling for the violent overthrow of the government. He ultimately received a relatively lenient sentence about three years later: a fine of 400,000 drams (about $1,040). After Pashinyan won re-election in June 2021, opposition lawmaker Ishkhan Saghatelyan tried to keep the protest movement alive, regularly rallying supporters in the streets. But even when the last Armenians fled Nagorno-Karabakh — an event that could have fueled massive outrage — his efforts failed to gain serious momentum. There were dozens of rallies and marches, but none posed a real threat to the government. The protest movement of 2024, however, gained far more support. It erupted during the border delimitation process between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Tavush region. This time, the leader of the protests wasn’t a politician but a priest: Bishop Bagrat Galstanyan of the Tavush Diocese. However, Galstanyan quickly faded from the spotlight. On June 12, 2024, his supporters tried to blockade Armenia’s parliament building and clashed violently with police. Instead of fueling the protests, the bloodshed seemed to extinguish them. Bagrat Galstanyan at a rally outside Armenia’s parliament. June 12, 2024. Galstanyan’s actions — including blocking major highways for several days with his followers and calling for acts of civil disobedience in Yerevan — could have been grounds for opening a criminal case against him even then. But no case was opened. Today, many of Pashinyan’s critics point to this as evidence that the charges now being brought against Galstanyan are politically motivated. They argue that if there was no legal basis to prosecute him last year, nothing has changed since then — and that the government is fabricating evidence of an alleged coup attempt . According to investigators, the planned coup was originally supposed to take place not in 2025, but in 2024. Even Catholicos Karekin II, who Galstanyan openly said had blessed his actions, was left untouched last year. Still, as far back as May 2024, Pashinyan had already promised to “deal with” the church within two to three months, calling it “an agent of foreign influence.” He drew a historical comparison to the Middle Ages, when Armenian church leaders received their anointment in Byzantium and, upon returning, promoted that empire’s interests in Armenia. The subtext seemed to point to Russia: although Moscow had no direct role in Karekin II’s appointment, his brother Ezras heads the AAC’s Russian and Novo-Nakhichevan Diocese. The Armenian Telegram channel Parallel Z accurately predicted as early as 2024 that both Bagrat Galstanyan and Mikael Adjapakhyan from the Shirak Diocese would eventually be arrested. “We all know the Pashinyan regime opens criminal cases over a single word if it wants to. They’ve been looking for a pretext for a while now. Give them some time, they’ll gather concoct some kind of materials, and off they’ll go,” read a post from a year ago. What’s real and what’s fabricated in the coup plot remains unclear. So far, investigators are trying to build their case on a few low-quality audio recordings and some PDF files, claiming that Galstanyan urged his supporters to torch cars in Yerevan, block roads, and seize power by force. What are the odds of a truce? The latest stage of the standoff began with an ill-conceived comment from Nikol Pashinyan about churches. On May 28, 2025, he compared them to storage closets where people dump things they no longer need. Archbishop Arshak Khachatryan, chief of staff of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, fired back, saying Pashinyan was displaying “a lack of the so-called ‘cool’ education he claims to have, as well as a serious failure of public communication and deep understanding of the issues at hand.” The conflict escalated the next day, May 30, when Pashinyan published a series of Facebook posts attacking the church. In the most provocative one, he wrote: “Your Holiness, why don’t you go back to screwing your uncle’s wife instead of meddling in my life?” He went on to allege that Karekin II had a daughter, suggesting he had broken his vow of celibacy, and called for him to be removed as head of the AAC. Pashinyan’s wife, Anna Hakobyan, also joined the fray, calling Karekin II a “mafia boss” and labeling the clergy “the country’s top pedophiles.” On June 10, Pashinyan announced the creation of a new working group tasked with “cleansing the patriarchate, so that with Christian love a true servant of God can be elected Catholicos of All Armenians.” But since then, no updates have emerged about the group’s work. Complicating matters further is the figure of Argishti Kyaramyan, one of Pashinyan’s top security officials and the former head of Armenia’s Investigative Committee. He is widely believed to be the illegitimate son of Bishop Arakel Kyaramyan , head of the Church’s Kotayk Diocese. Argishti Kyaramyan has repeatedly dodged questions about his father, admitting only that Bishop Arakel is a distant relative. But few have found this explanation convincing: it was clear that the young Argishti Kyaramyan (now 34) was being artificially fast-tracked through the ranks. For example, to formally meet the requirements for his appointment to the National Security Service in 2020, he was made deputy head of the Investigative Committee for a single day . This has fueled speculation that “father and son are Pashinyan’s main informants on the inner workings of the AAC” and that Bishop Arakel is the most likely candidate to replace Karekin II as a Pashinyan-loyal Catholicos. For now, though, the Kotayk Diocese — like the rest of the church — has publicly backed Karekin II. Billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, a Russian passport holder, also publicly supported the Catholicos. He was the first person to be detained in this wave of arrests (and the only non-clergy member), charged with inciting the overthrow of the government. The charges against him leave room for either a fine or up to five years in prison. Karapetyan is also rumored to be a potential financial backer of the protests and the opposition’s election campaign next year. The vote is scheduled for June 7, 2026. Armenian opposition figures claim the crackdown on clergy is a smokescreen, meant to distract attention from Karapetyan’s arrest and deflect anger from Moscow. But so far, the evidence points to the opposite: Karapetyan seems to have been caught in the crossfire of the government’s battle with the church. It’s hard to imagine the conflict cooling down anytime soon. With parliamentary elections looming that could decide Pashinyan’s political future, the AAC leadership, deeply offended by his remarks, will likely do everything in its power to bring down his government. The masks are off; no one is pretending anymore that the church is staying out of politics. On the other hand, it’s unclear how Pashinyan expects to win this fight. Forcing out the Catholicos will be extremely difficult, especially if the church remains united. Of course, Karekin II has his critics within the clergy. But after Pashinyan’s inflammatory attacks on the church as a whole, those critics may think twice about risking everything to support him. displaced and desperate ‘We left everything’ Uprooted and jobless, Nagorno-Karabakh refugees start from scratch in Armenia Analysis by Roman Chernikov…
U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky held a phone call on Friday. Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian president’s office, described it as a “very important and substantive conversation,” though he initially did not say who Zelensky had spoken with. Zelensky later confirmed the call was with Trump. In a post on Telegram, he said they discussed the situation on the front lines and Russian airstrikes on Ukraine. “We talked about air defense capabilities and agreed to work on strengthening the protection of our skies,” Zelensky wrote. “We also spoke in detail about the defense industry and the potential for joint production. We are ready to move forward with direct projects with the United States and believe this is critically important for our security, particularly when it comes to drones and related technologies.” Axios correspondent Barak Ravid, citing an informed source, reported that the call lasted about 40 minutes.…
Each time Chechnya’s longtime ruler, Ramzan Kadyrov, disappears from the public eye, it fuels fresh speculation about whether he's still capable of leading the republic. A recent public call to “pray for Ramzan,” made by the region’s deputy information minister, was instantly interpreted as a veiled reference to the Chechen leader’s declining health. At the same time, Kadyrov himself continues to float the idea of stepping down — though this familiar refrain has always ended with him staying in power. RFE/RL’s Kavkaz.Realii investigated why, amid mounting rumors, Kadyrov keeps returning to the subject of his resignation. Meduza shares an abridged translation of the outlet’s reporting. In early May 2025, Ramzan Kadyrov surprised many by publicly expressing a desire to step down. He clarified that the final decision rested with the “supreme commander-in-chief,” and that as a “man of the command,” the Chechen leader could only “request or suggest” his resignation. Kadyrov’s comments — and a subsequent meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin — came shortly after Novaya Gazeta Europe published an investigation claiming that his worsening health had “accelerated the scenario of a power transition in Chechnya.” Following the flurry of discussion prompted by Kadyrov’s remarks, he insisted that some people had misunderstood his words — and announced an upcoming meeting with Putin in Moscow. It might have all seemed like a clumsy attempt at provocation from Grozny — if not for the fact that, just before the meeting, Kadyrov reiterated that he was awaiting Putin’s decision on whether to accept his resignation. The Kremlin crushed Meduza’s business model and wiped out our ad revenue. We’ve been blocked and outlawed in Russia, where donating to us or even sharing our posts is a crime. But we’re still here — bringing independent journalism to millions of our readers inside Russia and around the world. Meduza’s survival is under threat — again. Donald Trump’s foreign aid freeze has slashed funding for international groups backing press freedom. Meduza was hurt too. It’s yet another blow in our ongoing struggle to survive. You could be our lifeline. Please, help Meduza survive with a small recurring donation. The May 7 visit to Moscow was officially framed as a working meeting focused on the war in Ukraine. But in the official footage, Kadyrov appears visibly anxious. As he reads from a prewritten statement — printed in large font across multiple pages — his hands tremble and his voice shakes. After the meeting, he said that the Russian president had rejected his resignation. “Vladimir [Putin], commenting on the recent speculation online, once again quoted the famous words of Mark Twain: ‘Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.’ He added that we still have much work ahead of us. I follow the orders of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief!” Kadyrov wrote afterward. Kadyrov’s May meeting with Putin ended like all his previous “attempts” to step down — with nothing changing. According to Kavkaz.Realii, Chechnya’s leader has publicly floated the idea of resigning at least six times since 2015. The last instance came in September 2022, when he said he had overstayed his post and deserved “an indefinite, extended vacation.” Planning for the future The Kadyrov succession plan A 17-year-old son’s lavish wedding and rapid promotions signal an heir apparent for Chechnya’s ailing strongman (Not) keeping up appearances According to a doctor at one of Grozny’s clinics, who spoke with Kavkaz.Realii on condition of anonymity for security reasons, Kadyrov appears to be a different person than he was just a year ago. The once-heavier leader has given way to a gaunt, pale figure. No one rushes to embrace him anymore — people keep their distance and mostly greet him with symbolic gestures, no longer wrapping an arm around his torso. The doctor suggested that this shift in behavior could point to an illness affecting the area between his chest and waist. It’s hard to miss how drastically Kadyrov’s public presence has declined. These days, his appearances are rare and largely ceremonial — limited to staged visits to construction sites, where he sits in the passenger seat and occasionally offers brief comments. Gone are the days of choreographed wrestling matches with MMA fighters or appearances at religious events. A source in Chechnya, also speaking to Kavkaz.Realii on condition of anonymity, said Kadyrov now relies on crutches when off camera and in private. He is reportedly consumed by concerns about his health and insists on being treated by European doctors, who are flown to Dubai for examinations. According to this source, Kadyrov has begun pushing his inner circle to shift their loyalty and attention toward his eldest son, Akhmat. However, the rapid promotion and recent marriage of his 17-year-old son Adam has prompted speculation that Kadyrov may be preparing his third son as his successor. Loyalty theater Ramzan Kadyrov’s repeated and theatrical appeals to resign are widely seen as “signals of loyalty to his overlord,” a political scientist at a Chechen university told Kavkaz.Realii. Through these gestures, the Chechen leader is essentially conveying that he will unquestioningly accept whatever decision Vladimir Putin makes about his future. “This kind of absolute personal loyalty is one of the reasons why, despite Kadyrov’s visibly deteriorating health, he remains in power,” the expert said. Regardless of how physically capable he is, Kadyrov’s continued rule serves as a real guarantee of maintaining the status quo in Chechnya — something I believe Vladimir Putin understands well. As long as Ramzan Kadyrov formally holds the post, no one will dare challenge him or sabotage Moscow’s policies as carried out through him. Meanwhile, the Kremlin is using this time to prepare for a power transition when the moment many are waiting for finally comes. Frequent talk of resignation is a common tactic in authoritarian regimes, noted Marat Ilyasov, a visiting scholar at George Washington University. “It’s often a way to emphasize their importance — to show they’re indispensable, irreplaceable,” he explained. [Kadyrov] wants to demonstrate that he’s essential to the job, to governing the republic, to the broader Russian leadership. He’s not exactly threatening Russia, but rather signaling: look, I’ll resign if you don’t appreciate me — and that gets people talking about how important he is. This desire for affirmation, Ilyasov said, stems from the fact that, in theory, any authoritarian leader can be swapped out for someone else — someone who could learn the job and rule just as autocratically. “The truth is, most authoritarian rulers aren’t particularly qualified, and Kadyrov is no exception. Everyone knows his qualifications,” Ilyasov said. “So by reminding his superiors that he might step aside, he’s emphasizing his own value and legitimacy.” it's a lifestyle, don From showroom to warlord How a Tesla Cybertruck made its way from the U.S. to Ramzan Kadyrov’s driveway…
Andrey Badalov, the vice president of the Russian state-controlled oil pipeline monopoly Transneft, has died after falling from the window of his apartment in Moscow. Badalov’s death was first reported by the Telegram channels Baza and Mash , both of which have ties to law enforcement, and was later confirmed by the state-controlled outlets TASS and Kommersant. Law enforcement sources told TASS that the death is believed to have been a suicide. A source in Russia’s Investigative Committee told Kommersant that an inquiry is underway. Based on its findings, investigators will decide whether to open a criminal case for incitement to suicide or murder, or to close the matter without charges. Badalov became vice president of Transneft in 2021.…
A traditional Moldovan tapestry in the former home of Natalia Jidovanu’s grandparents More than 20 years after moving abroad, multimedia journalist Natalia Jidovanu found herself grappling with Moldova’s struggles over national identity. The following personal essay, first published in The Beet , offers a first-person perspective on her home country’s trajectory since independence, recounting how the Soviet experience, economic hardship, and mass emigration continue to shape Moldovan politics and identity today. Weaving together reporting, photography, and reflections on her own identity, Jidovanu provides a closer look at a bigger picture, revealing how major historical events shape individual lives. This story first appeared in The Beet , a monthly email dispatch from Meduza covering Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. To get the next issued delivered directly to your inbox, sign up here . I was fifteen when the news struck me like a hammer: We are leaving Moldova. It was 10 years since independence, and the disruption of the old economic order and a lack of adequate reforms had brought Moldova’s agriculture-based economy to its knees. Once a breadbasket of the former Soviet Union, known for its rich farmland and vineyards, Moldova was now one of Europe’s poorest states. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, state ownership over agricultural land in Moldova was dissolved, and my father lost his job as a brigade leader at the collective farm in our village. The “National Land Program,” launched in 1997 with funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), granted individuals title deeds, making them legal owners of land — small parcels averaging 1.56 hectares (3.85 acres) called cota in Romanian. But this mass privatization posed a challenge to the farmers now turned entrepreneurs: their newly acquired plots were too large to be worked by hand, and too small to be farmed profitably. Without access to machines and tractors, farmers lacked the means to prepare the land, fertilize the crops, and harvest the produce. As a result, they were forced to either sell their cota or lease them to someone with a tractor and the know-how to use the land efficiently. My parents kept their plots (both husband and wife were entitled to allotments), but working the land brought more expense than profit. Our harvest was at the mercy of the weather and could not sustain our family financially. We lived a simple life. The days began early, birds chirping in the apple trees surrounding our house, and the occasional cluck of a hen. We planted, nurtured, and harvested vegetables on the property my father inherited from my grandparents. We had our cota on the hill, where we grew grapevines, sunflowers, and corn. My sister and I went to the village school and learned alongside neighbors and friends who were like family. Still, my parents decided it was time to leave. The house where I was born ‘Every man for himself’ Three years earlier, my father had tried his luck working abroad. A collapsing economy, long-term unemployment, and skyrocketing inflation were driving Moldovans out of the country at an unprecedented rate. With few options for legal emigration, most of this mass exodus occurred irregularly, as recruitment agencies and fraudulent job offers mushroomed. My father used an agency to process his visa and make travel arrangements to Israel. It was a gamble that cost him dearly. He boarded a plane but barely touched Israeli soil. The visa he had invested his hopes in was counterfeit. At Ben Gurion Airport, border guards immediately detained and deported my father. Having borrowed heavily to pay the agency, he had no way of repaying the debt. So instead of coming back home, my father borrowed again for a Schengen visa. The destination — Portugal. The debt grew larger, and so did his determination. Or perhaps, desperation. On a misty night in Chișinău, he boarded a bus along with other men from villages across the country, each with their own stories of hardship and hope, all seeking opportunity far away from home. After hours of travel, in the dead of the night, they were informed that they had reached France. “ Baieti [‘young men,’ in Romanian], from here, it’s every man for himself.” What followed was a train journey that felt endless. My father traveled with a crumpled paper in his pocket with a stranger’s phone number and the constant dread of being discovered. One wrong move, one unfortunate encounter, and everything could fall apart again. READ MORE FROM THE BEET A Church divided Russia’s war against Ukraine fuels tensions in Moldova’s main Orthodox Church In Portugal, he found a job at a construction site, where he worked illegally for two months. Faced with a crackdown from immigration officers, the company’s owner eventually told him to leave. But going home to Moldova was not an option. My father’s story is not unique. It mirrors the journeys of tens of thousands of Moldovans who left and continue to leave their homes in search of better lives. In 2001, my father was able to legalize his documents and get a Portuguese work permit. New immigration rules allowed migrants, whether they had entered Portugal legally or not, to obtain legal status if they found a job. Once they became official residents, immigrants could apply for their families to join them. I had just started attending high school in Cimişlia, the nearest city, sharing a room with my best friend and enjoying, for the first time, freedom as a teenager. I stood no chance of changing my parents’ decision or making my own. They believed that in Portugal, we could forge a path to a better life together. I had dreamed of Europe since I was a child. My grandmother, who was a teacher, had given me a collection of chunky World Encyclopedias that I would read and re-read during the long winter nights, sometimes by candlelight. Each page opened doors to a world I had never known and places I had never seen. I’d sit and dream that one day I’d get to see all these wonders, that I’d break the boundaries of my small world and experience the adventures of life beyond. I wanted to be a traveler, an explorer, a citizen of the world. The day I turned 16, I boarded a plane for the first time, leaving my youthful innocence behind to become a stranger in an unfamiliar land. My father at the entrance of my grandparents’ house São Martinho do Porto Life in Portugal was far from what I had imagined. Our first year in São Martinho do Porto, the famous resort town with shell-shaped beaches and crystal-clear waters, was difficult. I refused to enroll in school because I was terrified of being held back and becoming a “repeater.” Having to repeat a grade was an aberration in Moldova, where the education system set high expectations for every learner. I did not know a word of Portuguese, and I did not feel enthusiastic about learning it. I also wanted to teach my parents a lesson. So instead of going to school, I joined my father at the ceramics factory where he worked. I enrolled in secondary school the following year, but I struggled to fit in. A large number of migrants from Eastern Europe lived and worked in Portugal, and we were all labeled “Ukrainians” — a monolithic group of outsiders, whose unique roots and stories were blurred together. I instantly became known as “the Ukrainian” at my school, even though I did not know a word of the Ukrainian language. My grandmother was, in fact, from the Donetsk region, but my only ties to Ukraine were vague memories of a park in Kyiv where I had thrown a tantrum until my parents gave in and let me have my portrait taken with a Polaroid camera. I struggled to make friends and felt disconnected from my classmates. Conversations in the hallways were filled with references I knew nothing about: movies, fashion, soccer teams. My social knowledge felt inadequate, so I turned to my achievements as a measure of self-worth. I became the best student in my class, but the internal pressure to prove myself kept growing. I had always had strong opinions, but I grew increasingly self-conscious and learned to temper my views. I did not want to draw attention to myself. Though I had mastered Portuguese, my subtle accent set me apart when all I wanted was to blend in. Seeking to belong in my new world, I cut ties with my Moldovan past. I tore up the letters from my friends — symbols of a chapter I was trying to close — and let the memories slowly fade into the background. If I was going to carve a place for myself in this new country, I needed to leave Moldova behind. Back to where it all began I land in Chișinău after a 20-hour journey. It’s been six years since my last visit and 22 since I left the country. It is not just a return to a physical place but also to a part of my life that feels so distant: Will the places that once shaped my world still feel like home? At the airport, people speak Romanian and Russian. This bilingualism is normal here; most inhabitants of Chișinău speak both languages. But to my ears, it is jarring. Growing up, we only spoke Romanian at home, and it was the language of communication of my entire village. Russian was a foreign language, and even though it was taught in my school, I never got the hang of it. A national census in 2024 showed that 15.3 percent of Moldova’s population are Russian speakers, even though ethnic Russians comprise only 3.2 percent. While Moldova has long been multicultural, Russian influence is a relic of the Soviet era. Workers were recruited to work in the Moldovan industries from other republics, including the Russian SFSR and the Ukrainian SSR, and Russian speakers became overrepresented in urban settings. This period also saw the enforcement of a language called “Moldovan” (or “Moldavian”), which imposed the Cyrillic alphabet on the Romanian language spoken in the country. The Soviet regime claimed it was a different dialect based on peasant speech patterns, one allegedly more representative of the population than the “literary” language used in neighboring Romania. Meanwhile, the regime encouraged loyalty to the “Soviet Fatherland.” Those who dared to criticize its policies were persecuted for nationalism and silenced through intimidation, imprisonment, or deportation . The Eternity Memorial Complex in Chișinău, Moldova’s largest war monument The national revival movement of the late 1980s ultimately marked the beginning of Moldova’s separation from Moscow. This wave of civic and political initiatives coincided with Mikhail Gorbachev ’s reform policies, creating space for previously forbidden demands. For the first time in decades, Moldovans could openly call for national sovereignty, freedom of speech, and a return to Moldovan traditions. Moldova’s political scene saw diversity for the first time after decades of Communist Party dominion. The events of August 27, 1989, when the Great National Assembly for Independence took place in Chișinău, changed the course of Moldova’s history. Following the demands of hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, the Moldovan Supreme Soviet adopted legislation on August 31 declaring Romanian the state language and reinstating the Latin script. The following year, the parliament declared August 31 “Romanian Language Day” — a national holiday that sent a clear message about the language spoken on both banks of the River Prut. During the first Bridge of Flowers event on May 6, 1990, residents of Romania were allowed to cross the Prut without a passport or visa and spend several hours in Soviet Moldova. More than a year later, on June 16, 1991, a second Bridge of Flowers reversed the flow. This time, the inhabitants of Moldova were able to cross the border into Romania, symbolizing brotherhood, a shared history, and a desire for reconnection. Crowds gather on the Moldovan side of the Prut River in honor of the opening of the Soviet–Romanian border during the first Bridge of Flowers. Residents of Moldova and Romania exchanged flowers on a bridge spanning the waterway. May 6, 1990. The victory over the language was followed by demands for free elections and a declaration of sovereignty. Then, on August 27, 1991, Moldova proclaimed independence from the USSR. Moldova’s Declaration of Independence named Romanian as the state language, and the newly elected government asserted a common Moldovan–Romanian identity. Some politicians even spoke of reunifying Moldova with its “historical motherland.” Meanwhile, in the Transnistria and Gagauzia regions, conflicts over language and identity had erupted into violent secession. The eastern industrial region of Transnistria declared independence in 1990, leading to a bloody two-year war with Moldova. After the conflict ended, Transnistria became a Moscow-backed separatist state. Today, this breakaway region maintains Russian, “Moldavian,” and Ukrainian as its official languages — a direct rejection of Moldova’s Romanian identity. Gagauzia , a southern region home to a Turkic minority that also declared independence in 1990, saw clashes on a smaller scale but was ultimately reintegrated into Moldova as an autonomous territorial unit four years later. READ MORE FROM THE BEET Dispatch from Gagauzia Moldova’s autonomous region where Soviet-era Russification and Moscow’s political influence remain strong By that point, Moldova and Romania had begun to drift apart. Moldova’s 1994 referendum on remaining an independent republic marked the end of reunification as a viable political option. The vast majority of Moldovans (95 percent) voted for independence as the way forward, effectively shelving the idea of unification with Romania. In the years following the 1994 referendum, successive Moldovan governments began reviving the narrative of separation from Romanians. They argued that the country’s people are Moldovans, their language is Moldovan, and their history and culture are distinct from those of neighboring Romania. This trend accelerated after Communist Party leader Vladimir Voronin was elected president in 2001. His party openly celebrated Soviet holidays and flaunted its Communist name and hammer-and-sickle symbol, further straining relations with Bucharest. Twenty years later, on Romanian Language Day, President Maia Sandu took the opportunity to call for unity. “I want the Romanian language to become a common denominator for all citizens of Moldova, whatever their mother tongue, and to function here in harmony with the other languages — Ukrainian, Russian, Gagauz, Bulgarian, and others,” she said . Nevertheless, the politicization of the language and Moldovan identity remains significant to this day. As my taxi speeds towards the City Gates — two massive brutalist structures marking the entrance to Chișinău — scenes from my childhood play in my mind. Every year, during the last week of August, I would travel with my mother to the capital’s bustling central market on a mission to buy supplies for the new school year. It was a long-awaited day, but also an exhausting race through narrow alleys where the Russian language was king and my inability to speak it left me at the mercy of judgmental stares. Years may have passed, but the feeling of alienation remains. Stefan cel Mare Central Park in Chișinău Europe Day It’s my third day in Chișinău. The clock strikes 8:00 a.m., and I hurry towards the city center. It’s May 9, Europe Day, a celebration of unity and peace across the continent. Yet in Moldova, the day has a deeper meaning: it is a reminder of the country’s aspirations and long journey towards joining the European Union. Just weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Moldova applied for E.U. membership, securing candidate status by June. President Sandu, an avid advocate of European integration, set 2030 as the target for the country’s official accession. A “European village” has been set up in the Great National Assembly Square to celebrate the holiday, with a concert called “Europe is YOU!” expected to take place later in the day. But May 9 is not just Europe Day here. A short walk away, at Stefan cel Mare Central Park, a different kind of celebration gathers pace. A steadily growing crowd carries red flags with gold-bordered stars and bouquets of flowers. They are here to hold a Victory Day march — a solemn commemoration of the Soviet Union’s triumph over Nazi Germany during World War II. I remember celebrating Victory Day as a child in my village. Every year, locals laid flowers at the monument honoring fallen soldiers in the garden of our local government building, and our community center, the House of Culture, hosted gatherings to celebrate the veterans. Portraits of soldiers and Soviet military uniforms paint the streets of the city as the crowd heads toward the Eternitate Memorial, the country’s largest war monument. “ Spasibo dedu za pobedu!” the crowd chants in rhyming Russian, “Thank you, grandfather, for the victory!” White doves soar into the sky as a symbol of freedom, and a sorrowful song echoes through the memorial grounds: it’s the story of a man forced to work abroad and the relentless pain of missing the family he left behind. Moldova’s population has decreased by about 35 percent since 1989, falling to 2.4 million. An estimated one million Moldovans are currently working abroad, either permanently or temporarily. Moldovan and E.U. flags hang from the Government House in Chișinău Finding no answers, only questions Over the next two weeks, I travel north and south. I visit monuments and historical landmarks. I attend religious ceremonies and literary events. I reconnect with childhood friends and former classmates. Back in my village, I sit with a glass of homemade wine. Moldovans and their grapes have been inseparable for ages, and wine is more than just a drink — it is both a sign of hospitality and a symbol of pride and connection to our land. I listen to the stories of those who left and those who stayed behind, those who rebuilt their lives in distant places, and those who remained on the soil of our ancestors. — Back then, we had everything we needed. We had work. We had an order. We had food on the table. We had friends. And we had a community. We laughed and cried together. But now we are adrift. Everybody is on their own. If only I could turn back time to live that life again! — If I could turn back time, it would be for my youth only. I do not want the misery back. We worked day and night, and we had nothing. Our children built their lives in Europe. If they are happy there, I am happy with them. Europe is their home, so it is my home and future too. — The future? It doesn't exist. We are on the edge of the abyss. For over 30 years, we’ve been lied to by the same individuals masquerading under different political colors. The European Union is an illusion. Reunification with Romania is the only way out. We speak Romanian. We are Romanians. Listening to these conversations, I can’t help but think that my country is like a mirror reflecting back the struggles I have been trying to ignore. Caught between two opposing worlds, Moldova is grappling with its sense of identity, just as I am. We both search for a place where our heritage can reconcile with our ambitions. Our past, shaped by powerful outside influences and a struggle for freedom, continues to impact our present. In Moldova, my years away have made me an outsider, a stranger in a familiar land. Portugal is where my life began to unfold, but it will never feel entirely mine. I am from both places, but I belong to neither. I returned to Moldova looking for answers, hoping to find a resolution. Instead, I leave with more questions. Where do I belong? Do I belong anywhere at all? Are we a nation? Whose nation? “If you don’t know your past, you cannot have a future,” a childhood friend who now works in the country’s judicial system argues. But the road is fraught with uncertainty, and each move forward feels like stepping onto shifting sands. Moldova’s struggles with its national identity cannot be easily resolved, nor can my own. Building a nation from what has always been a multiethnic and culturally diverse population has been a difficult journey. The questions we carry may never find clear answers. Perhaps it is within the ambiguity of being part of different worlds that we can begin to forge connections, to ourselves and others. Hello, I’m Eilish Hart, the editor of The Beet. Thanks for taking the time to read our work! Our newsletter delivers underreported stories like this one to subscribers once a month. Like all of Meduza’s reporting, it’s free to read but relies on support from readers like you. Please consider donating to our crowdfunding campaign . Story by Natalia Jidovanu for The Beet Edited by Eilish Hart Natalia Jidovanu’s reporting for this story was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Howard G. Buffett Fund for Women Journalists.…
U.S. President Donald Trump said he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin has no intention of ending the war in Ukraine, Reuters reported , citing Trump’s remarks. “I’m very disappointed with the conversation I had today with President Putin, because I don’t think he’s there, and I’m very disappointed,” Trump told reporters. “I don’t think he’s looking to stop, and that’s too bad.” “I didn’t make any progress with [Putin] at all,” he added. According to the Kremlin’s account of Thursday’s call between the two presidents, Trump “raised the issue of ending hostilities in Ukraine as soon as possible,” while Putin expressed Moscow’s readiness to continue negotiations with Kyiv. At the same time, the Russian leader said Moscow “will not abandon its goals of eliminating the causes of the conflict.” Trump also said Washington has not fully halted its arms deliveries to Kyiv. He accused his predecessor, Joe Biden, of sending so much weaponry to Ukraine that it had weakened the United States’ own defenses. “We’re giving weapons, but we’ve given so many weapons,” Trump said. “And we’re working with them and trying to help them, but we haven’t [completely stopped deliveries]. You know, Biden emptied out our whole country giving them weapons, and we have to make sure that we have enough for ourselves.” He added that he plans to speak by phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 4. Zelensky had previously said he was hoping for that conversation and planned to raise the issue of suspended arms shipments, which came to light earlier this week.…
The Russian authorities have designated a 14-year-old boy from Orenburg as a terrorist, according to a Telegram channel that tracks updates to Russian financial watchdog Rosfinmonitoring’s official list of “terrorists and extremists.” “For the first time, a person born in 2011 has been added to the list. He is now its youngest member,” the channel’s authors reported. The teenager is identified as Amir Tulegenovich Shagatov, born in Orenburg on April 13, 2011. The report notes that an asterisk appears next to Shagatov’s name, indicating that he is suspected of involvement in terrorism. The specific charges against him have not been made public. Teenage ‘terrorists’ ‘I wanted to fight this horror’ The growing number of Russian teenagers going to prison on sabotage charges…
Russian air defenses shot down or intercepted 48 Ukrainian drones across five regions overnight, the country’s Defense Ministry reported on Thursday. According to the ministry, 26 drones were downed in the Rostov region, 12 in the Kursk region, six in the Belgorod region, three in the Oryol region, and one in the Lipetsk region. In the Rostov region, one civilian was killed when a drone crashed into a residential building in the village of Dolotinka, Governor Yury Slyusar reported. In the town of Azov, a drone strike damaged an apartment building, causing its roof to collapse and prompting the evacuation of about 120 people. Debris from another drone reportedly fell on Azov’s Lakomov Stadium. In the town of Shakhty, around 6,000 residents lost power after a drone attack. The Ukrainian Telegram channel Exilenova+ reported that the strike in Azov targeted the Azov Optical and Mechanical Plant. In the Belgorod region, according to Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, an apartment building was hit in the village of Oktyabrsky, injuring a civilian. Another drone reportedly struck a “social facility” in the village of Bessonovka, wounding an employee. In the village of Golovchino, a drone hit a truck, injuring one person. Authorities in the Oryol region said there were no casualties or damage there. Officials in the Kursk and Lipetsk regions did not report on any consequences from drone attacks. In the Moscow region’s Sergiev Posad district, four Ukrainian drones crashed early Friday morning, injuring two civilians, according to Governor Andrey Vorobyov. District head Oksana Yerokhanova reported that the drones damaged a substation, leaving at least five neighborhoods in Sergiev Posad without power. According to the regional Energy Ministry, electricity has since been restored to some customers.…
Russian forces carried out a large-scale overnight attack on Ukraine, using 539 drones and 11 missiles, according to Ukraine’s Air Force Command. The military said 478 aerial targets were either successfully intercepted or “lost from radar tracking or suppressed by electronic warfare systems.” Kyiv was once again among the targets. Ukraine’s interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said more than 20 people were injured in the capital, including a 10-year-old girl. Residential buildings, schools, medical facilities, and transportation infrastructure were damaged. Ukrainian Railways said rail infrastructure in Kyiv was also damaged. Passenger train service was partially disrupted, with some trains delayed by up to two hours. Russian forces also attempted to strike the area near Kyiv’s Zhuliany Airport, where Patriot air defense systems are based. This assessment is based on geolocated images of fires in the area, though what exactly was burning remains unclear.…
Russia has formally recognized Afghanistan’s Taliban government, Russia’s Foreign Ministry told TASS. According to the outlet, the Taliban flag has been raised over the Afghan embassy in Moscow — the first time it has flown there since the group seized power in 2021. Russia’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Dmitry Zhirnov, said President Vladimir Putin made the decision following a proposal from Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The move, Zhirnov said, “demonstrates Russia’s sincere intention to establish a full-fledged partnership with Afghanistan.” As Reuters noted , Russia is the first country in the world to officially recognize the Taliban government since the group took control of Afghanistan in 2021. The Taliban was designated a terrorist organization in Russia in 2003 after the group was added to a corresponding list by the U.N. Security Council. Since the Taliban’s return to power, Russia has actively engaged with the group; Taliban representatives have regularly visited Russia and held meetings with Russian officials. In December 2024, the State Duma passed legislation allowing organizations to be removed from Russia’s list of terrorist organizations by court decision. Putin signed the law shortly afterward. In late March 2025, the Prosecutor General’s Office petitioned the Supreme Court to suspend the ban on the Taliban’s activities in Russia. The court granted the request in April.…
Russia’s celebrities are bickering again. Earlier this week, blogger and singer Instasamka (Daria Zoteeva) posted politically charged allegations against two other performers, Dora (Daria Shikhanova) and Maybe Baby (Victoria Lysyuk). Specifically, she accused Dora of covering music by the Ukrainian rock band Valentin Strykalo and the emigre rapper Face, despite these artists’ “involvement in the oppression of our country,” as she put it. Instasamka claimed that Maybe Baby’s music promotes drug use and other propaganda that Russia recognizes as extremist movements, likely alluding to Lysyuk’s bisexuality. She also claimed that security at Maybe Baby’s concerts had previously ejected people for chanting “Russia!” Meduza reviews the latest drama from one of Russia’s most notorious online personalities. In her Telegram post , Instasamka complained about Dora and Maybe Baby’s continued commercial success, arguing that they were profiting off Russia’s “destruction”: And today they perform for Russian people, for our youth, making albums with destructive content. Under the guise of freedom, they push and have always pushed propaganda. Some opposition you are! You don’t stand for anything. These people get on Channel One without any problem and tour 10+ cities, drawing crowds of 1,000+. [...] And now a question for you, girls: What are you doing here? Instasamka’s claims come years after a previous spat with Maybe Baby, when the latter publicly mocked Zoteeva in a “diss track” in 2022. Last month, Instasamka announced that she would finally release a “retaliatory diss,” declaring that “playtime” is over. Following the propaganda allegations, Maybe Baby joked that Instasamka apparently spent the last three years brainstorming how to denounce her. Instasamka’s other target, the performer Dora, pointed out that the covers Zoteeva flagged were released back in 2017, when Shikhanova was still in school and using a different pseudonym. None of those tracks was ever included on a Dora album, she clarified. “Be sure to verify information before spreading it, and don’t trust questionable characters who pursue selfish goals,” Shikhanova said. Actor Maxim Vitorgan also weighed in, expressing outrage at the public denunciation. “Where does this nasty snitching shit come from in young people?” Vitorgan asked. His ex-wife, journalist Ksenia Sobchak, also commented on the scandal, recalling that Instasamka herself was the target of a denunciation campaign in 2023, when the Safe Internet League lobbied for the cancellation of her concerts to halt what the group claimed was drug propaganda and “depraved acts against children.” After the league’s leader, Ekaterina Mizulina, held a “working meeting” with Instasamka, the artist promised to take down all songs “containing dangerous information.” From the track “Pimp Lady” Buying myself a yacht, buying myself a chain / Was dealing crack then, running a brothel now. From “Holy Bible” Build me a temple / I'll cleanse your karma / Look at the screen / Save spam, self hard / I'll sell it all, sell it all / City full of scam From “Jail” Five minutes until the cops roll up / Get out the ammo, time to hold it down. From “Russian World” Russian world — it’s a tough sport / No comfort here / We’re all half-dead / Russian world — it’s a tough sport / Make money like Tom Ford / Make money like Tom Ford / Until you're dead. “I agree with you, my old tracks from 2019–2020 were trash, and I myself wasn’t quite right back then,” Instasamka responded. However, she claims that she has turned over a new leaf, focusing her newer music on promoting values such as “love, success, husband and wife, motivation, self-confidence, love for your body, and striving to live in prosperity.” Instasamka then declared, “Today, when I have meaning in life, a loved one beside me, a long relationship in which we plan to have children, I understand that what these two bitches are doing is fucked up.” Now 25 years old, Daria Zoteeva is one of Russia’s most scandalous bloggers and rap performers. She gained popularity on Instagram and later launched a singing career. On and off the stage, Instasamka has engaged in deliberately provocative behavior, feuding with a former assistant, insulting makeup artists, inventing stories of a home robbery and an accident that supposedly involved her boyfriend. In her songs, Zoteeva emphasizes her love of money, epitomized in her biggest hit, For Money Yes . The first campaign against Instasamka preceded the spike in patriotic culture that followed Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In 2021, the Ivan Chai Center for Protecting Traditional Family Values complained to public prosecutors in the Sverdlovsk region about Zoteeva’s song Lipsi Ha , but the investigation was dropped. In 2023, Instasamka’s brush with the Safe Internet League led to the cancellation of some concerts. Zoteeva resumed touring after meeting with Ekaterina Mizulina, but she nevertheless found herself among several “ banned artists ” on a list leaked to the news media in the fall of 2024. “You could look at this new round of going after her colleagues as just more shameless theatrics — [Instasamka’s] usual ‘look what I can get away with’ antics. But this move aligns perfectly with where things are heading between artists and the state,” argued Dozhd journalist Yulia Taratuta. In a news broadcast on July 3, she said her sources doubt that Zoteeva was acting on orders from the authorities when she attacked Shikhanova and Lysyuk. “They’re doing the snitching themselves now, bit by bit,” said Taratuta. “They’re reading the room now.”…
Russia’s Oscar rigging, Solovyov’s praise for Zelensky, and a Putin ideologist’s Obama portrait What we learned from Ukrainian producer Alexander Rodnyansky’s new memoir In late 2024, Meduza’s publishing house released a memoir by Ukrainian film producer Alexander Rodnyansky titled Loveless: Putin's Russia in Nine Films. In the book, Rodnyansky recounts his experiences as a key figure in the Russian and Ukrainian film industries over the past decades. He covers the early days of the Ukrainian TV channel 1+1, where Volodymyr Zelensky’s political career began; examines how self-censorship has shaped Russian cinema under Putin; and reveals insights into Russia’s cultural landscape at the beginning of the full-scale war. Literary critic Liza Birger highlighted 13 little-known or surprising facts from the new volume. We’ve translated a selection of them into English below. Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov predicted the full-scale war in fall 2021 (and called Zelensky ‘a likable guy’) In early fall 2021, at Sochi Airport, Alexander Rodnyansky happened to run into one of Russia’s preeminent propagandists, Vladimir Solovyov, who was returning from Moscow after interviewing Putin. To Rodnyansky’s surprise, Solovyov said, “Listen, there’s going to be a war.” When Rodnyansky responded in disbelief, “Come on — what war?” Solovyov insisted: “There definitely will be a war, believe me. I don’t see anything good in it. It’s terrible.” According to Rodnyansky, Solovyov explained that Putin felt personally offended by Zelensky and no longer saw any possibility of a deal. “It’s a shame,” Solovyov added. “Zelensky is a likable guy.” The encounter stands in sharp contrast to Solovyov’s public statements today, in which he calls Zelensky a “führer” and a “druggie.” Alexander Rodnyansky played a key role in shaping Zelensky’s political career Volodymyr Zelensky’s path to the presidency began at Ukraine’s top TV channel, 1+1 — whose first head was Alexander Rodnyansky. The network was commercially independent, with a 50 percent stake owned by Rodnyansky and his cousin, businessman Boris Fuksman, and the other 50 percent by the American media company CME. Additionally, in Rodnyansky’s own words, 1+1 “consistently introduced the young nation to the Ukrainian language and the new market reality and helped foster a competitive political environment — factors that laid the groundwork for Zelensky’s political career.” Rodnyansky was tasked with finding a mediator for peace talks on the first morning of Russia’s full-scale invasion The second person to call Rodnyansky on February 24, 2022, was Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian president’s office. Yermak asked him to identify a businessman close to Putin who could help facilitate negotiations and seek a peaceful resolution to the war. Rodnyansky named the only candidate he thought suitable: businessman Roman Abramovich, “who’s incredibly successful, widely known, and very honorable.” Abramovich later played a behind-the-scenes role in organizing the March 2022 talks in Turkey, although those efforts ultimately failed to produce a ceasefire. Alexander Rodnyansky and Roman Abramovich at a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and the Council on the Development of the Russian Film Industry. December 17, 2021. Rodnyansky was once blacklisted in Russia after a film of his sparked a scandal because of a scene featuring two portraits (you can probably guess whose) Directed by Pavel Bardin, the 2009 film Russia 88 told the story of a gang of Russian neo-Nazis. The film was a dark reinterpretation of Romeo and Juliet , with one key difference: the central character was Tybalt, reimagined as a skinhead and neo-Nazi. The controversy erupted over a scene set in a makeshift basement gym, where, as the police burst in, a portrait of Hitler was flipped over to reveal a portrait of Putin on the back. Then–presidential aide Vladislav Surkov was reportedly “genuinely outraged” and accused Rodnyansky of disloyalty, saying, “You’re the one handing out medals to the Banderites in your own homeland.” Surkov personally called Russia’s culture minister, the head of the Russian Cinema Fund, and the country’s TV executives, pressuring them to cut all ties with Rodnyansky. As a result, Rodnyansky was excluded from state funding programs for several years. Ukrainian TV once operated under a system of government-issued ‘talking points’ — but during the Orange Revolution, journalists pushed back In the mid-2000s, 1+1 was not politically independent. Under pressure from the authorities, who threatened to revoke its broadcasting license and filed lawsuits against it, the channel’s editorial policy came under the control of the presidential administration. From then on, the editorial team received weekly instructions outlining “what we can talk about on air, what we should avoid, who we’re allowed to invite to talk shows, and who we aren’t.” This changed during the 2004 Orange Revolution. TV hosts began appearing on air wearing orange scarves — the color of opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko’s campaign — and staff wore orange to editorial meetings. In a bold move that “broke all imaginable rules,” the channel also aired news coverage from a competitor broadcasting live from Yanukovych’s headquarters. For three days, the news was anchored solely by the editor-in-chief, as “there was no one else to do it.” Then, on November 25, 2004, Rodnyansky addressed viewers live on air, declaring that from now on, “only the 1+1 editorial team and management will determine the content of our news,” and promising to provide “complete and unbiased” information. Within a week, the channel’s audience nearly doubled. The film Leviathan was partly inspired by the story of American repair shop owner Marvin Heemeyer and his infamous ‘Killdozer’ bulldozer In 2008, while filming in New York, Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev heard the story of Marvin John Heemeyer, a repair shop owner from Granby, Colorado. On June 4, 2004, Heemeyer used a custom-built armored bulldozer to destroy 13 government buildings before taking his own life. His rampage was the violent culmination of a long-running dispute with a concrete company that had expanded onto his property with the support of local officials. A different era The village where they filmed ‘Leviathan’ Stunning photos from the setting of the Oscar-nominee The story became the starting point for a draft script titled Batya , though the project was eventually abandoned. Zvyagintsev and his co-writer Oleg Negin felt uneasy about how Heemeyer’s story ended. To them, it seemed “too American” and didn’t fit the Russian worldview, which they saw as shaped by a philosophy of endurance — the ability to suffer endless humiliation. Police inspect the armored bulldozer of Marvin John Heemeyer after his rampage. June 5, 2004. Former top Kremlin ideologue Vladimir Surkov kept a photo of Barack Obama in his office In 1988, Rodnyansky first saw the future Kremlin ideologist Vladislav Surkov at a gathering of Russian rock fans in Kyiv. At the time, the Ukrainian capital was home to a vibrant community that regularly attracted visiting Russian rock enthusiasts, who would gather to listen to music, smoke weed, and talk for hours. By today’s standards, it was a familiar scene, but back then, they stood out as true “Westernizers” — free-spirited and defiant. Even though we’re outlawed in Russia, we continue to deliver exclusive reporting and analysis from inside the country. Our journalists on the ground take risks to keep you informed about changes in Russia during its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Support Meduza’s work today. According to Rodnyansky, even when he later became the Kremlin’s shadowy power broker, Surkov “remained true to the spirit of rock ’n’ roll for many years.” His office in the presidential administration building featured photos of John Lennon, Tupac Shakur, Che Guevara, and Barack Obama. While managing the Kremlin’s ideological strategy, he also wrote songs with Vadim Samoylov, co-founder of the rock back Agatha Christie, and published a provocative novel under a pseudonym titled Almost Zero . Russia’s 2012 Oscar submission was chosen at the last minute — thanks to a rigged vote In 2012, the main contenders to represent Russia at the Oscars were the films Elena by Andrey Zvyagintsev and Faust by Alexander Sokurov, “a remarkable artist who had never been submitted for an Oscar.” Faust had just won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival. “It could have been a fair and open competition,” Rodnyansky writes, and at first, the votes were evenly split. But at the critical moment, Vladimir Menshov, head of Russia’s Oscar committee, “simply pulled five or six proxy votes out of his briefcase, signed by committee members who hadn’t even shown up to the meeting.” All the votes went to White Tiger, “a film nobody outside Russia had ever heard of,” which had flopped at the Russian box office but happened to be directed by a political heavyweight, Mosfilm’s Karen Shakhnazarov. The film made it onto the Academy’s longlist, but its Oscar campaign ended there. Just before the full-scale war, Rodnyansky signed a deal with Apple and was planning an international project called Global Russian Stories Shortly before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Alexander Rodnyansky signed a first-look deal with Apple TV+. Additionally, he was in talks with European and Russian companies about a project called Global Russian Stories — a series of films and shows that would be “universal, meaning accessible to audiences worldwide, but rooted in Russian history and contemporary life.” The plan was for Russian streaming platforms to hold distribution rights for Russian-speaking audiences, while Rodnyansky would secure “partners, significant investment, and a strong negotiating position” with Western buyers. Among the projects in development were Red Rainbow , a tragicomedy about a visit by German gay activists to homophobic Moscow in 1978, and The Black Russian , a film about the Black entrepreneur who opened Moscow’s first jazz club in the early 20th century. “Neither I nor any of my colleagues or partners believed disaster was inevitable,” Rodnyansky reflects. “War, sanctions, exile — it all seemed unimaginable. On the contrary, I thought it would be a ‘time of change’ for me.” Original list by Liza Birger…
U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a phone call on Thursday, according to Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov, who shared details of the conversation. Ushakov said Trump “raised the issue of ending hostilities in Ukraine as soon as possible.” Putin, he added, expressed Moscow’s readiness to continue negotiations with Ukraine but said that Russia “will not abandon its goals of eliminating the causes of the conflict.” The two leaders did not discuss the reported suspension of certain U.S. arms deliveries to Ukraine, nor did they address the timing of a third round of talks between Moscow and Kyiv. They also discussed the situation surrounding Iran, as well as what Ushakov described as the possibility of Russia and the U.S. “exchanging films that promote traditional values shared by [Moscow] and the Trump administration.” The call lasted nearly an hour, and the two presidents reportedly agreed to continue their dialogue. “It’s hard to say who hung up first, but the interpreters were the last to put down the phone,” Ushakov remarked. The White House has not yet commented on the call. This was the fifth phone call between Trump and Putin in 2025. Their previous conversation took place on June 14.…
Like our earlier reports on the combat situation in Ukraine, this article takes stock of the recent developments on the battlefield based on open-source information. Meduza has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from the very start, and our detailed military analyses are part of our commitment to objective reporting on a war we firmly oppose. Our map is based exclusively on open-source photos and videos, most of them posted by eyewitnesses on social media. We collect available evidence and determine its geolocation markers, adding only the photos and videos that clear this process. Meduza doesn’t try to track the conflict in real time; the data reflected on the map are typically at least 48 hours old. Key updates as of July 3, 2025 The Ukrainian command has managed to stabilize the front in the Sumy region and east of Pokrovsk, but in southern Donbas, the defensive lines have once again been breached. The Russian army has seized the territory between the Vovcha and Mokri Yaly rivers and is now advancing toward a key Ukrainian stronghold — the town of Novopavlivka in the Dnipropetrovsk region. If the town falls, Russian forces will gain the ability to push north, bypassing Pokrovsk, and west, deeper into the Dnipropetrovsk region. Meduza has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from the very start, and we are committed to reporting objectively on a war we firmly oppose. Join Meduza in its mission to challenge the Kremlin’s censorship with the truth. Donate today . Southern Donbas After capturing Velyka Novosilka in late January, Russian forces launched an offensive northward from the former Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) stronghold, advancing along both banks of the Mokri Yaly River. At the same time, another Russian group pushed west along the Vovcha River toward its confluence with the Mokri Yaly. Over the course of nearly six months, each group advanced only about 15 kilometers (about nine miles) amid heavy fighting. But as Russian troops closed in on their target — the junction of the two rivers — from both directions, Ukraine’s defenses entered a serious crisis. In June, the “Vostok” contingent, formed from forces of Russia’s Eastern Military District, broke through along the Mokri Yaly, pushing north through the village of Komar to the confluence with the Vovcha and seizing several settlements along the Vovcha’s southern bank. Meanwhile, units from the “Tsentr” contingent, advancing from the direction of Kurakhove, captured the villages of Oleksiivka, Novoukrainka, and Dachne on the northern bank of the Vovcha. Dachne is the first settlement in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region to fall under Russian occupation. This advance forced the AFU to retreat from the area between the rivers toward the town of Novopavlivka to avoid encirclement. Their defense was further complicated by the limited number of crossings over the Vovcha, as Russian airstrikes regularly targeted bridges and pontoon crossings built by Ukrainian troops. Russian forces now threaten to reach Novopavlivka, a key stronghold that supports the entire Ukrainian defense south of Pokrovsk. In the long term, Russian troops could press toward the Dnipro–Pokrovsk highway, potentially cutting off Ukrainian forces in the Donetsk region from the Dnipropetrovsk region. Pokrovsk, Toretsk, and Kostiantynivka Russia’s offensive between Pokrovsk and Toretsk has slowed due to the redeployment of Ukrainian reserves to this sector, including units transferred from the Sumy region. In turn, AFU forces were pulled from the area around Velyka Novosilka to reinforce the regional center, Sumy, contributing to the collapse of Ukrainian defenses in the area between the Vovcha and Mokri Yaly rivers. Despite the slowdown, Russian troops continue to widen their incursion north of the Pokrovsk–Kostiantynivka highway. East of Pokrovsk, they’ve reached the Kazennyi Torets River near the settlement of Novoekonomichne and are trying to break through to the Pokrovsk–Druzhkivka road, which links the Pokrovsk and Kramatorsk sectors. Farther east, Russian forces have become bogged down in battles for Yablunivka, along the Pokrovsk–Kostiantynivka road, and for Oleksandro-Kalynove, near the western edge of the Kleban-Bykske Reservoir. If Russian troops reach the reservoir, it would cut off Ukrainian units defending the western outskirts of Toretsk. Another Russian group is pushing toward the eastern end of the reservoir from Toretsk itself. These forces have captured a key Ukrainian fortified position — the Saint Matrona Mine — which had previously blocked Russia’s advance toward the reservoir. Russian troops also launched a direct assault from the east on Ukraine’s main defensive stronghold on Toretsk’s western edge. In the coming days, it’s likely that Ukrainian forces — mostly National Guard units, which form the core of the local defense — will be forced to withdraw from Toretsk and fall back to the northern shore of the reservoir, toward Kostiantynivka. Sumy region Ukrainian forces have managed to slow the Russian advance north of the city of Sumy. The offensive initially made rapid progress, as some Ukrainian brigades — previously withdrawn from Russia’s Kursk region with heavy losses — were either sent to rest or redeployed to the Pokrovsk–Kostiantynivka highway, where Russian troops had just broken through. When Russian forces pushed seven to eight kilometers (about five miles) into Ukrainian territory near Sumy, the Ukrainian command was forced to send reserves to reinforce this front. Intense fighting is ongoing near Oleksiivka and Andriivka in the central section of the Sumy front. Farther east, in the village of Yunakivka, Ukrainian troops have managed to hold positions along the Sumy–Sudzha road. It appears that Russian forces are preparing a new offensive aimed at cutting the Sumy–Sudzha road west of Yunakivka, in an effort to force Ukrainian troops to retreat into the city of Sumy itself. Meduza is careful in working with data, but mistakes are still possible, and perhaps even inevitable. If you spot one, please let us know by sending an email to reports@meduza.io . Thank you! Read our previous combat map A new ‘buffer zone’? Russia advances in east-central Ukraine, pushing toward territory it does not already claim Meduza’s Razbor (“Explainers”) team…
Manolis Pilavov, the former mayor of Russian-occupied Luhansk, was killed in an explosion in the city center, the Russian state news agency TASS reported, citing emergency services. The blast reportedly occurred around noon on July 3 on Taras Shevchenko Street. Officials in the self-proclaimed “Luhansk People’s Republic” said one person was killed and three others injured. Russia’s Investigative Committee said it had opened a criminal case in connection with the explosion. Unconfirmed reports suggested that an explosive device had been planted behind the door of a building. Ukrainian media outlets , citing sources in the country’s security services, later reported that Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) was responsible. The sources described Pilavov as one of the ideologues of the “Luhansk People’s Republic” and an associate of its former leader, Igor Plotnitsky. Pilavov led the Luhansk city administration from December 2014 to November 2023. In 2015, the SBU declared him wanted under three articles of the Criminal Code: the violent overthrow of the constitutional order, violation of the country’s territorial integrity, and the creation of a terrorist organization.…
Russian forces launched an Iskander ballistic missile strike on the port of Odesa on Thursday afternoon, the Odesa regional military administration reported. According to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba, the missile struck one of the port’s piers while metal was being unloaded from a foreign cargo ship flying the flag of São Tomé and Príncipe. The attack reportedly killed two people — a dockworker and a truck driver — and injured six others, including port workers and two Syrian nationals from the ship’s crew. Port infrastructure was also damaged in the strike, including gantry cranes, equipment, and warehouses. “Russia has been attacking our ports for four years in a row. They’re targeting the infrastructure that connects Ukraine to the world, the people who keep these critical facilities running, and civilians. This strike is yet another example of Russia’s deliberate effort to destroy our transport hubs, cripple our exports, and take innocent lives,” Kuleba said.…
Mikhail Gudkov, the deputy commander-in-chief of the Russian Navy, has been killed in the country’s Kursk region, Primorsky Krai Governor Oleg Kozhemyako announced on Thursday. According to Kozhemyako, Gudkov died “fulfilling his duty as an officer alongside his comrades.” Among the other casualties, the governor named officer Nariman Shikhaliyev. The circumstances and exact date of their deaths were not specified. On Thursday afternoon, the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed that Gudkov was killed in the Kursk region, saying he died on July 2 during combat operations in one of the region’s border districts. Ukrainian Telegram channels and media reported that Gudkov had been “eliminated,” while Russian propagandists announced his death the previous day. Some Telegram sources claim Gudkov and 10 other officers died in a strike by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on a command post near the village of Korenovo, close to the border, though the exact timing remains unclear. An obituary posted by a Russian Navy servicemen’s organization states that on July 2, 2025, the Ukrainian Armed Forces launched a missile strike on the command post of the 155th Marine Brigade. The post said four missiles hit a forward command post in Korenovo, killing more than 10 people, including Gudkov and several senior officers. Gudkov was appointed deputy head of Russia’s Navy in March 2025.…
Galina Timchenko (left) and Polina Aronson On June 11, at Berlin’s Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien gallery, Meduza publisher Galina Timchenko sat down with sociologist Polina Aronson for a conversation about the emotional toll of today’s news cycle — on both readers and journalists. The talk was part of the event series accompanying Meduza’s 10th anniversary exhibition, “ No .” One of the questions raised during the Q&A was how censorship is reshaping the ways newsrooms connect with their audiences. Meduza shares a summary of that conversation. Join us for the final curator-led tours of the exhibition on July 5 and 6. Spots are still available, but we recommend signing up soon before they fill up. When asked whether Meduza’s readership today is primarily inside or outside of Russia, Galina Timchenko, the outlet’s co-founder and publisher, said the picture is “changing in real time.” In the early days, she explained, Meduza was able to stay one step ahead of Kremlin censors: We were pretty good at playing cat and mouse — ‘catch me if you can.’ But ten years ago, the people working for the Kremlin weren’t that sharp. Now there’s a whole new generation of digital-savvy operatives. […] They’re smart. Skilled. They know what they’re doing. I hate them — but still, credit where it’s due. Despite increasingly aggressive Internet censorship, Meduza’s mobile app can still bypass blocks. But the Kremlin is learning fast. “A year ago, our ‘mirrors’ — alternative servers with identical copies of our site — were blocked maybe twice a week,” said Timchenko. “Now? Every ten minutes. We’re constantly changing mirrors.” Pinning down the actual size of Meduza’s audience in Russia is difficult. When the site was first blocked, the team noticed huge spikes in traffic from countries like the Netherlands, France, and New Zealand — a sign that Russian users were relying on VPNs. “We’ve since figured out how to count our Russian readers again,” Timchenko said. Meduza now estimates it has between eight to 10 million readers in Russia, down from 20 million before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “The door is closing,” Timchenko warned. “We’re going to keep losing our Russian audience.” She recounted a conversation with a human rights activist in Russia: “She said, ‘It doesn’t feel like you’re working from abroad.’ But we know that won’t last forever.” Read also ‘There’s no such thing as safety’ In Russia, journalists must either adapt to censorship or risk their freedom. So why do they keep reporting? Fear is another factor. “No matter how secure our systems are, people say: ‘We’re scared to work with you,’ ‘We’re scared to even read you,’” Timchenko said. “Some uninstall the app, even though you can change the icon so it doesn’t say Meduza. And I get it. No story is worth your health or your nerves.” For now, Meduza continues to focus on its Russian audience, but Timchenko said she’s realistic about the future. “At every conference I say, ‘Guys, let’s not kid ourselves — we’re going to lose more and more readers.’” She added that the decline in readership is about more than just fear. “You can’t go around heartbroken for three years straight. You can’t grieve forever. At some point, you say: ‘I’m done. I can’t anymore. I’ve got loved ones, kids, birthdays, New Year’s. Please stop with the horrors.’” Timchenko said that people in Ukraine do still read Meduza, though fewer than before the full-scale war. “That said, there’s still a big hunger for information — like in any country at war,” she said. She recalled how a well-known Ukrainian expressed concern about a story on low morale in the army: “He said, ‘People will read this and think it. But we need to keep morale up.’” Read also ‘Please don’t use my name’ A report by journalist Shura Burtin on the growing war weariness among Ukrainians Before February 2022, about 18 percent of Meduza’s readers were in Ukraine. “Now it’s down to around 8–10 percent,” Timchenko said. “But that’s still a lot. They read us, they sometimes get angry — and they have every right to feel whatever they feel.” Meduza also works with Ukrainian journalists, she added — “anonymously, of course.” Asked whether there’s a contradiction in saying the media can’t exist without readers while also saying you can’t reach people who don’t want to hear you, Timchenko didn’t see one. “We built a media outlet that we ourselves wanted to read — knowing we weren’t alone,” she explained. “We knew we had like-minded people out there.” She does everything she can to reach readers, she said, “but I don’t knock on every door.” “People under the spell of propaganda are basically in a totalitarian cult,” she continued. “It takes years of therapy with really smart people to break out of that.” “I don’t have that kind of time,” Timchenko said. “Ten million people read us — I’ll talk to them.” The Collaborative Research Centre “Affective Societies” at Freie University Berlin, where Polina Aronson works as public outreach manager, has translated the full conversation into English. You can read it here . Read also ‘Artists always get a carte blanche’ The anonymous curator of Meduza’s anniversary exhibition on the show’s origins, history’s echoes, and the role of art in times of crisis…
A patient armed with a knife and a gas canister attacked medical staff at a hospital in the Siberian city of Irkutsk on Thursday morning, according to Governor Igor Kobzev. The hospital’s deputy chief physician and a secretary were hospitalized in serious condition. Police arrested the attacker at the scene. The Russian Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case on charges of attempted murder of two or more people. Investigators noted that both victims are women. The Interior Ministry later released a video showing the suspect lying on the floor with his face blurred. In the footage, he says, “I wanted to kill the doctor. I’ve been deprived of my right to life under the Constitution and the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.” The Telegram channel Baza identified the suspect as a 59-year-old man named Alexey. According to the channel Babr Mash, he had repeatedly visited the hospital to file complaints. Baza, citing hospital staff, reported that he had been threatening doctors for about a year and was registered at a psychiatric clinic. Staff say he once tried to attack them before, but that time a special police unit intervened and he was placed under involuntary treatment.…
Explosions rocked two industrial facilities near the village of Berezyna in Ukraine’s Zhytomyr region on Wednesday evening, killing two people and injuring 24 others, including four children, according to regional military administration head Vitaly Bunechko. He said the two people killed were employees of one of the facilities, while the injured were local residents. The blasts occurred at two production sites along the M-06 Kyiv–Chop highway, local officials reported. Serhiy Sokalsky, head of the Hlybochytsia community, said both facilities were completely destroyed. An eyewitness told Suspilne that the explosions happened three minutes apart. Officials have not disclosed the cause of the blasts. Initial reports suggested that a gas station operated by the Azerbaijani company Socar had been damaged, but Bunechko denied this. Bunechko also said the explosions destroyed 25 homes. Authorities have yet to provide a full count of additional damaged buildings. Power lines were affected as well, leaving 735 households without electricity, according to regional energy company Zhytomyroblenergo. Police closed the M-06 highway in both directions after the blasts, redirecting traffic to alternate routes. Partial traffic resumed later, with one lane open in each direction. Full access to the highway was restored on Thursday morning. Following the explosions, the Zhytomyr Regional Center for Disease Control and Prevention advised residents to stay indoors and keep their windows closed.…
At a press briefing on Wednesday, U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce rejected media reports suggesting that Washington has halted all weapons supplies to Ukraine. She argued that the suspension of shipments through Poland is more limited in scope than reports suggest, telling journalists, “This is one aspect, one situation, one event that has been changed.” Bruce emphasized: “This is not a cessation of us assisting Ukraine or of providing weapons. This is one event in one situation. We’ll discuss what else comes up in the future, but be wary of painting too broad a brush there.” Earlier in the day, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration had halted deliveries of some weapons systems to Ukraine to preserve America’s own stockpiles. The suspended shipments include Patriot interceptor missiles that are critical for defending Ukrainian cities and infrastructure against Russia’s intensifying airstrikes. According to NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman, the U.S. munitions now being held in Poland include 30 Patriot missiles and hundreds of other missiles. During Wednesday’s press briefing, Bruce deferred to the U.S. Defense Department on the specifics of the arms pause. On the subject of Washington’s support for Ukrainian air defenses, she said, “The president has also indicated his remaining commitment [sic] regarding Patriot missiles.” Later, after the press briefing, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on X that his administration is working with American officials to “clarify all the details of defense support, including air defense.”…
In February 2023, 19-year-old Sergey Kyalundzyuga and his 23-year-old cousin Alexander Sigde set off for a fishing trip in the Russian taiga. At the end of the day, they settled into the rudimentary winter cabin where they planned to spend the night. Late in the evening, Sergey heard a noise outside. As soon as he turned to look out the window, an Amur tiger leapt through the door, knocking him to the ground. By the time Alexander grabbed his rifle and shot the animal, it had already torn off his cousin’s arm. In the days that followed, police accused Alexander of provoking the attack by firing at the tiger earlier in the forest, and in May 2025, an appeals court convicted him of killing an endangered species. It wasn’t the first time the state had taken a tiger’s side over a human’s in such a confrontation; on the contrary, Vladimir Putin has adopted tiger preservation as one of his pet causes. Meduza shares an abridged translation of a joint report from the outlets Novaya Vkladka and Govorit NeMoskva on the tension between tiger conservation and human life in Russia’s Far East. ‘They slipped me a piece of paper’ For a long time after he was discharged from the hospital, Sergey Kyalundzyuga would tuck his empty left sleeve into his pocket to create the illusion of a full arm. He kept his face hidden under a hood so no one would recognize him. These days, he pays no mind to the sideways glances from passersby, and he even makes jokes about his missing limb. Sergey is a short guy in black sneakers and a gray T-shirt with the left sleeve hanging loose. A friend laced up the shoes for Sergey about a year ago, and he hasn’t untied them since; it’s not easy to do with one hand. Explaining why his hand is rough to the touch, he says he’s been lifting weights to build strength in his remaining arm. Sergey lives in Luchegorsk, a coastal village in Russia’s far-eastern Primorsky Krai. He moved here in September 2024 to “get away from everyone” — including the tigers. Two years ago, in early 2023, Sergey, his cousin Alexander, and three other relatives rode snowmobiles from Arsenyevo, his home village in Russia’s Far Eastern Khabarovsk Krai, to Anyuysky National Park, about 70 kilometers (43 miles) away. After a day of fishing, Sergey and Alexander packed their fish into bags, which their other relatives took home by snowmobile. Sergey says he wasn’t there just for the fishing. He wanted to distract himself from the death of his father, who had been killed the previous year in a tree-cutting accident. “I thought I’d find some peace in the taiga, make some money from the fish, and pull myself together,” Sergey explains. He was studying welding at a local college and had started working part-time already. After his father’s death, it fell to him to support his two younger sisters, younger brother, and disabled mother. Sergey jokes that he once ran away from a reporter because “my lawyer banned me from talking to the press.” Discussing the tiger attack is still hard for him. He says he had a bad feeling that day and hadn’t wanted to go to the forest. “But on the other hand,” he says, “if it hadn’t been me, someone else might have died.” Around 11:00 p.m. on February 12, Sergey heard a noise on the roof but assumed it was the cat they’d brought from home to catch rats in the hut. On the attic floor lay their last sack of fish, which hadn’t fit on their relatives’ snowmobile. “Did you hear that?” he asked his cousin, who was lying on the bed. Sergey pulled back the curtain — “and there it was, this huge head.” A tiger had jumped right through the window, shattering the glass. Lions, tigers, and... ‘They found a foot and a bottle of vodka’ Life in Russia’s southern Kamchatka, where there’s one increasingly hungry bear for every two people “I was lucky I managed to put my arm up. It bit into my shoulder — it was going for my neck — and clawed me across the back,” Sergey says, pulling down his T-shirt collar to show the dent between his shoulder blades. “Alexander ran out, grabbed the rifle hanging by the door, and shot the tiger point blank in the head.” Sergey’s cousin tied a tourniquet around Sergey’s upper arm, laid him on the bed, and turned on the TV to help distract him. There was no cell signal in the woods, so Alexander set off to find their uncle, Mikhail, who was staying in another hut 10 kilometers (six miles) away. Mikhail helped carry Sergey to his warmer cabin, then headed for the main road to find cell service. The snowmobile had broken down in the forest, so Mikhail had to ski nearly 45 kilometers (28 miles) through untouched snow to get help. Sergey wasn’t airlifted to the hospital in Khabarovsk until February 14. By then, he had multiple broken ribs and a collapsed lung. He’d lost two liters of blood, and the wound where his arm had been torn off was badly infected. “When I opened my eyes, I was already on a stretcher in the hospital. Photographers and journalists were flashing lights right in my face — it was awful. I blacked out again, and came to when my mom walked in. I could barely sit up, and that’s when I realized my arm was gone. I cried for a week straight,” Sergey recalls. Later, he learned that before the attack, the tiger had ransacked several other cabins nearby, including one where it broke down a door, and another where it tore apart a foam mattress. In March, a man and a woman in police uniforms came to visit Sergey in the hospital. “They took advantage of a moment when my mom had stepped out to buy groceries,” Sergey says. They walked right into my room and started asking me what happened. I told them, but they didn’t believe me. I thought they were writing down what I said, but then they slipped me a paper with the investigators’ version of events. Stupid me didn’t realize what it was, and I signed it. The investigators claimed that Kyalundzyuga and Sigde had been poaching, and that Alexander had shot the tiger in the forest before the attack. Several days later, the wounded and enraged animal attacked Sergey, they alleged. The case files say that Alexander killed the attacking predator, but they don’t clarify where the attack took place or how the tiger ended up in the cabin. Nor do they clarify whether the cousins, one of whom was by then missing an arm and bleeding heavily, dragged the dead animal there themselves. Nevertheless, the accusation of illegal hunting became the foundation of the case against Alexander and Sergey. ‘ Tigger has to eat something ’ In Luchegorsk, where Sergey Kyalundzyuga now lives, images of tigers are everywhere: a bright green topiary shaped like a predator on the central square, a handmade bench with a stylized tiger on it, a display board reminding residents how important it is to protect the rare animal. The Amur tiger is a source of pride in the Russian Far East, but in recent years, it’s also become a major danger to the region’s residents. The endangered big cats have been killing dogs, cows, and horses in villages. Occasionally, they also attack people. Tigers are rare in Luchegorsk itself. The last time locals spotted one was this winter — about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) from town, near an active coal mine where workers feed stray dogs. One of the dogs crawled under an excavator with its tail between its legs when a tiger and her cubs passed nearby. Nearly everyone this story’s authors talk to in the town has a story about what happens when people cross paths with these predators. And all the stories seem to have the same conclusion: that the state hasn’t just failed to solve the problem, it’s openly taken the tigers’ side — even when the encounters turn deadly. “If someone defends themselves and kills an animal, not only do they get hit with a million-ruble fine, they also get taken to court. I know two guys whose cabin was attacked by a tiger — one of them died, and the other shot the tiger. He got fined one and a half million rubles ($19,000) and sentenced to a year and a half in prison,” says a local man named Alexey. “Poachers shoot at the tigers, sometimes just wounding them, and that’s why they attack. Plus, they’re starving — hunters have killed all the game, so there’s nothing left to eat in the forest.” Tamara is a pensioner from the nearby village of Verkhniy Pereval. Like many in the Russian Far East, she refers to the striped predator as “Tigger.” This year, she says, the big cats have snatched several dogs off their chains in her village. “One Tigger settled near [the town of] Bikin, and another Tigger came from [the village of] Alchan. They split our village between them. And you’re not allowed to kill them! They just drag off the dogs every winter like it’s nothing,” she says. Tamara says the tiger problem in Verkhniy Pereval got much worse three or four years ago, after African swine fever (ASF) swept through Primorsky Krai and wiped out much of the wild boar population. “People would go mushroom picking and come back saying the forest was littered with boar carcasses,” she recalls. “And Tigger has to eat something.” Tamara also remembers a man who hit a tiger with his car and called the police. “They fined him,” she says. “What was he supposed to do — drive into a ditch just to avoid hitting the tiger?” At a local cafeteria, a ruddy-faced coal miner named Andrey launches into a story about a tiger as he’s sneaks what appears to be cognac into a glass of fruit compote. The moment the topic of tigers comes up, he launches into a story about how a friend of his had to stand guard at night with a rifle to protect his horse at a nearby dacha settlement — because “Tigger was prowling around.” Another friend actually had to shoot one, he says: He told me, “It’s one thing that it ate all the dogs. But when it lunged at my wife, I shot it.” They hit him with a multi-million-ruble fine and sent him to prison. I think he did the right thing. But [Primorsky Krai Governor Oleg] Kozhemyako says, “You can’t touch the tigers!” And God forbid you kill one — they’ll throw you in jail. In Andrey’s view, the tigers have started venturing into villages because of deforestation. “Personally, I blame Moscow,” he says. “The people at the very top.” ‘ It roared and my legs gave out ’ In the village of Arsenyevo in the Khabarovsk region, where Sergey and Alexander used to live, locals have had their own close calls with tigers. The most recent run-in happened in December 2024, when a big cat attacked two dogs belonging to a local Udege woman named Nadezhda Kyalundiga. Her house sits on the edge of the village, near the forest, and she works at the local grocery store. Standing behind the counter, she recounts the story with something close to a laugh. Still, she says that for a while afterward, even the sound of passing cars would make her flinch. “My husband was working the night shift, and around three in the morning, I hear footsteps. One of the dogs, Amur, suddenly barks, then goes quiet. Then the second one, Jackie, the little guy, starts howling — ‘Woo-oo-oo!’ And then nothing. Silence,” Nadezhda says. It was pitch black outside, and she was too scared to go out alone, so she went back to bed. In the morning, she found Amur’s torn-up body in the yard. Jackie was nowhere to be seen. She headed to the shed to check on the cow and calf. “I’d almost made it to the shed when I heard this deep growl. I thought, am I imagining this? Then — it roared. My legs just gave out. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t. I don’t even remember how I crawled back to the house,” she recalls. Nadezhda called the Arsenyevo village administration. When wildlife inspectors arrived, the tiger was still in the hayloft, finishing off Jackie the dog. As soon as it noticed movement, the tiger leapt down and lunged at one of the inspectors. He managed to fire a flare, but it didn’t scare the animal off. The second inspector hesitated to shoot, afraid he’d hit his partner. “The guy was screaming, just screaming. I had to cover my ears, I was so scared! He ended up firing six shots. He said if he’d tried to use a tranquilizer, the tiger would’ve mauled his partner before the drug kicked in. The thing’s face was massive, but the body was skinny, mangy, just terrifying,” Nadezhda says. She then recalls treating the injured inspector’s wounds with hydrogen peroxide: his lips had turned blue, and his “face was as white as chalk.” After the tiger attack, Nadezhda’s husband walked her to work every day for a month. According to locals, tigers have always lived near Arsenyevo, but before the winter of 2022–2023, they didn’t go after dogs. Like people in Luchegorsk, residents here blame African swine fever, which wiped out much of the wild boar population and left tigers with nothing to eat. “They’re weak, totally exhausted,” says Nadezhda’s husband Igor. “The one they killed, its tail was chewed off. Other tigers must have attacked it and driven it off their territory.” He believes the tigers coming near settlements are connected to the logging of the taiga, which is being sold to China. “What are they cutting down? Oak. And oak is what wild boars feed on. If the food base keeps shrinking every year, then why the hell are you breeding tigers? I’ve told this to two, maybe three reporters already,” Igor fumes. Tiger territory Residents of small villages in the taiga of Primorsky Krai and Khabarovsk Krai have effectively become hostages to the tigers: killing the animals is prohibited, but what to do when a predator threatens a person is unclear. As the people of Arsenyevo have learned, even talking publicly about tiger attacks is frowned upon. “We don’t even know how we’re supposed to behave. These groups like the Amur Tiger Center, they started pressuring us. They told us not to post anything online,” says Nadezhda. “When the police showed up, they asked about our social media photos, [saying,] ‘Why did you share this?’” At the Arsenyevo municipal council office, village head Igor Lonchakov is clearly not thrilled to see journalists. “Why are you even doing this? We dealt with this two years ago — five reporters visited back then. What, are we seeing a sudden surge in tiger attacks?” he says. “I’m a biologist, and I know this: not a single woman or child has ever been attacked by a tiger. That case with the Kyalundzyuga and Sigde brothers? That happened out in the taiga. They were hunters, and that was tiger territory. But an attack on a person in a village? Name one. You won’t.” The Kremlin crushed Meduza’s business model and wiped out our ad revenue. We’ve been blocked and outlawed in Russia, where donating to us or even sharing our posts is a crime. But we’re still here — bringing independent journalism to millions of our readers inside Russia and around the world. Meduza’s survival is under threat — again. Donald Trump’s foreign aid freeze has slashed funding for international groups backing press freedom. Meduza was hurt too. It’s yet another blow in our ongoing struggle to survive. You could be our lifeline. Please, help Meduza survive with a small recurring donation. So far, there have indeed been no recorded tiger attacks on people in Arsenyevo itself. But in the winter of 2023, before a tiger bit off Sergey Kyalundzyuga’s arm, several predators were spotted prowling the village’s outskirts. “My husband was heading to the bus stop — and a tiger ran right past him!” says Nadezhda, the grocery store clerk. That same year, a dog was mauled under the porch of a house in Arsenyevo. Another tiger was captured at a beekeeping site near the village. A third — a young, starving female — found a pan with food scraps left by workers and got her tongue stuck to the frozen metal. By the time she tore herself free, the snow around her was spotted with blood. Later, when a snowmobile passed by and a seat cushion fell off, the emaciated animal tore that the shreds too. Game wardens tranquilized the tiger to move her deeper into the forest, but she was so weak that she never woke up, according to Dmitry Kyalundzyuga, Sergey’s uncle and the local representative of the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON) in Arsenyevo. Over the past year, tiger attacks in the Russian Far East have mostly occurred not in villages themselves, but just outside of them. In fall 2024, a tiger dragged a logging worker into the taiga and mauled him near the Khabarovsk village of Solontsovy. In December, another tiger broke a man’s ribs while he was vacationing at a glamping site in Anyuysky National Park — his wife and children narrowly escaped. In spring 2025, a forester was killed by a tiger in Primorsky Krai. At a recent scientific conference in Moscow, Amur Tiger Center Director Sergey Aramilev emphasized that fatal encounters with Amur tigers are extremely rare: from 2010 to 2024, there were only 20 recorded attacks, seven of which ended in death. In all cases, he said, humans were to blame: Gunshot wounds or other injuries inflicted by people provoke aggression in tigers. Also, pursuing the animal — when it’s defending itself, its cubs, or its kill — can lead to an attack. The two recent cases in 2025 fit the same pattern: both tigers had multiple gunshot wounds. So this idea that tigers show unprovoked aggression towards humans is a myth, found only in inaccurate online stories. ‘They wouldn’t have let us go otherwise’ The Udege community in Arsenyevo doesn’t believe the authorities’ claim that Sergey Sergey Kyalundzyuga and Alexander Sigde provoked the tiger attack by hunting it. Lyubov Odzhal, the head of RAIPON in Khabarovsk Krai, insists that the Udege don’t engage in poaching at all: their traditions and beliefs don’t allow it. Then there’s the fact that Sigde and his cousin were both young and inexperienced hunters who had been taken into the taiga by older relatives. Odzhal says Sigde’s relatives told her that from March 11 to 13, 2023, nearly everyone who’d gone into the forest with him was taken in for police questioning and released only late at night for a few hours, then brought back in early the next morning. According to Sigde’s defense attorney, Alexander Zasukhin, there was indeed a long interrogation from 9:00 a.m. until 2:00 a.m., but it only happened once. Odzhal believes this is why Sigde’s uncle, Mikhail, told his nephew to go along with the investigators’ account and take the blame: “Otherwise they wouldn’t have let us go.” Sigde declined to comment for this story, and his uncle Mikhail didn’t respond to requests. Sigde now faces two criminal charges: illegal hunting of a protected species and illegal possession of a firearm. According to Sergey Kyalundzyuga, the gun his cousin used to shoot the tiger had been left in the winter cabin by Uncle Mikhail, in case of a bear attack. When tigers attack ‘We’ve been living in fear, dreading nightfall’ In Russia’s Far East, villagers are asking Putin and soldiers fighting in Ukraine to save them from tigers Both Odzhal and Zasukhin point to inconsistencies in the prosecution’s version of events — particularly the confusion over how many bullets were found in the tiger, and the fact that no blood traces were found at the site in the forest where Alexander and Sergey had been. Zasukhin also argues that a licensed veterinarian should have conducted the forensics on the tiger, which were instead done by Sergey Aramilev, the director of the Amur Tiger Center, who’s a biologist by training. In court, Zasukhin called Aramilev a “party with a conflict of interest,” arguing that the tiger was starving, and the lack of food in the forest is the center’s responsibility. When Zasukhin attempted to bring in an independent expert from Irkutsk, the court rejected the motion. According to Aramilev’s report, Alexander Sigde had fired at the tiger several days before the attack on his brother. On the day of the attack, he reportedly shot the animal from about 10 meters away, hitting its neck, then shot it in the head at least twice during the ensuing struggle. After a polygraph test, Sigde told police he had fired at the tiger earlier because he was frightened and wanted to scare it off. But people in the village believe this testimony was coerced. Regardless of whether Sigde fired at the tiger before the attack or not, Zasukhin stresses that the poaching allegations were never proven. “They’re saying [Sigde] was hunting. But to prove that somebody was poaching, you need evidence that they intentionally searched for, tracked, and pursued the animal with the goal of capturing it for personal use. There was none of that,” he says. In January 2025, a court in Khabarovsk Krai sentenced Alexander Sigde to two years and two months of community service, with 10 percent of his wages withheld for the state, and a fine of 2.6 million rubles ($33,000). He was also banned from leaving the Nanai district for a year. On May 20, the Khabarovsk regional court reviewed his appeal and slightly reduced the sentence, cutting the term of community service to one year. The ruling has not yet taken effect, as Sigde’s lawyer plans to appeal to the Supreme Court. Indigenous solidarity in Russia Not Russians’ ‘little brother’ anymore Russia’s decolonial movement banks on interethnic solidarity in its fight against the Kremlin ‘It’s like a tiger’s life matters more than a human’s’ Lyubov Odzyal believes the prosecution’s bias in the case against Alexander Sigde is the result of the Amur Tiger Center’s lobbying. The Russian Geographical Society founded the center in 2013 at Vladimir Putin’ initiative, with the mission of protecting and growing the population of the endangered predator. Dmitry Kyalundzyuga from Arsenyevo shares this view, arguing that the case is politically motivated: Look at who sits on the board of the Russian Geographical Society. A regular Udege guy like Alexander could never win in court, because the state doesn’t lose court cases. Especially not now, when even a hint of dissent isn’t tolerated. It used to be different — there was international recourse, people could take things to court outside the country. When asked to comment on the RAIPON representatives’ criticism and the inconsistencies in the forensic report he authored, the Amur Tiger Center’s director, Sergey Aramilev, responded: “The court has determined who is responsible. If anyone disagrees with the actions of law enforcement or others, there are legal avenues to pursue.” Dmitry Kyalundzyuga suspects that reports sent to Vladimir Putin about Amur tigers present a distorted view that always blames humans for attacks, though he acknowledges that “maybe the president genuinely has good intentions when it comes to protecting the tiger.” “Can they really not figure out why the tigers are coming out [of the forest]?” he asks. “Everyone wants to save the tiger, but Indigenous people shouldn’t be turned into scapegoats.” Zoologist Viktor Lukarevsky agrees. He’s been studying big cats since 1984 and now serves as a scientific secretary at the Perm Zoo. He believes the tiger population in the Russian Far East is severely weakened by food shortages — and that within a few years, up to 90 percent of the endangered cats in the region could disappear. The 2021–2022 outbreak of African swine fever, he says, only worsened an already dire situation. The real damage comes from deforestation in the Ussuri Taiga and increasing hunting quotas for wild boar and red deer, both of which are key food sources for tigers. Reintroducing boars to the forest hasn’t worked, Lukarevsky says, because most of them lack immunity to swine fever. Without a vaccine, another outbreak is likely. In some parts of Khabarovsk and Primorsky Krai, red deer are now the only food tigers have left. Tigers’ spotted cousins ‘Nature doesn’t wait’ In the Caucasus Mountains, rare Persian leopards know no borders “How are we ‘protecting’ tigers when we’re destroying their habitat?” he says. “I’d like to see how you’d survive if your home was destroyed, if you couldn’t work, couldn’t earn a living, couldn’t find food. How would you reproduce, how would you feel? And yet, everywhere we’re told that the tiger is doing just fine.” Indeed, Russian media regularly reports that Amur tigers are “under solid protection,” that their population is growing , including in Khabarovsk Krai, and that Vladimir Putin has personally thanked the Amur Tiger Center for its efforts. But according to Lukarevsky, tigers are naturally cautious animals. If there were enough prey in the forest, they wouldn’t come near human settlements. Hunger, he says, changes their behavior. And the center’s refusal to acknowledge the problem only fuels public anger — anger that often turns not against the officials, but against the animals themselves. “It’s like a tiger’s life matters more to the state than a human’s,” he says. ‘A person wakes up, steps outside to use the toilet, and he’s gone’ Sergey Kyalundzyaga still flinches at the slightest rustle when walking through the forest at dusk. “At first, I kept dreaming about the tiger. I couldn’t sleep at night — I had to take sedatives,” he says. Like many locals, Sergey still has no clue how to defend himself from tigers without breaking the law. “A person wakes up, steps outside to use the toilet, and that’s it, he’s gone,” he laments. When phantom pain kicks in, he stands in front of the mirror to remind his brain that his arm is gone. He’s already learned to cook and dress himself with one hand, but some everyday tasks remain a struggle. “The hardest part is tying a hat on my kid. The saddest part is, I can’t fish anymore,” Sergey explains. A new tradition is born ‘A Bashkir-style mosh pit’ Outdoor dance parties with no fees, no alcohol, and no politics are trending in Russia’s Bashkortostan Sergey lives with his girlfriend and their two children, two-year-old Katya and seven-month-old Zakhar, who was named after a friend killed in the war in Ukraine. The family makes do with his disability pension of 20,000 rubles (about $220) and child benefits. He hasn’t been able to find a job. “As soon as they see I’ve only got one arm, they’re like, ‘Nope, we don’t hire people like that. No disabled workers,’” he says. Alexander Sigde left Arsenyevo for a while but later returned. In May, he and his wife had their second child. Whether he’s currently employed is unclear; his relatives mention only the occasional odd job. Alexander’s mother, Irina Sigde, says her son can’t sleep properly. “He can’t fall asleep next to the forest. He tosses and turns all night. His psychiatrist prescribed him pills, but he says they don’t help,” she explains. Lyubov Odzhal says bitterly that for many Indigenous people, this story hits close to home, since it suggests that in the eyes of the state, they have fewer rights than animals: Everyone understands that today it was those two boys, and tomorrow it could be me or anyone else. Someone heads out to the winter hut, and a tiger attacks and kills them. And then the media will report that the person shot at the tiger first, so they don’t count as a victim. According to the 2021 census, there were just 1,325 Udege people left in the Russian Far East, and their numbers have been steadily declining over the past 30 years. At the same time, the Amur tiger population stood at just over 750 and had been growing consistently for three decades. Original story by Kira Rakusa for Novaya Vkladka and Govorit NeMoskva…
Dozens of women in Moscow have reported being groped and propositioned for sex by strangers in the city center — incidents now linked to a “body training” course run by Alexander Kirillov, a.k.a. Alex Leslie. A self-styled “seduction coach” and “pickup artist,” Leslie was arrested in 2018 after becoming embroiled in a scandal involving an escort who leaked footage filmed on board oligarch Oleg Deripaska’s yacht. Today, he runs online “training programs” for men that openly encourage disregarding the concept of consent. Russia’s Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case against Leslie, who currently lives in Warsaw, on suspicion of inciting rape. However, Leslie appears unconcerned by the charges and has used the growing public outrage to promote himself. In the meantime, several of his followers in Russia have been arrested for assaulting women on his advice. On June 25, Russia’s Investigative Committee opened a criminal case against blogger and self-styled pickup coach Alex Leslie (real name Alexander Kirillov). He’s now under investigation on suspicion inciting rape. The case was launched shortly after State Duma deputies Yana Lantratova and Ksenia Goryacheva contacted law enforcement over reports of street harassment targeting women in central Moscow. According to the Telegram channels Kosa and Ostorozhno Moskva , multiple young women in various Moscow neighborhoods were approached by men who groped them — grabbing their buttocks — and then either propositioned them for sex or fled the scene. Some of the assailants had accomplices filming the encounters. When one woman went to the police, she was reportedly asked, “Was it really so serious that you need to file a report?” The complaints from Muscovites kept coming in over the following days. Among the victims was a 17-year-old girl. The bitter truth is that events in Russia affect your life, too. Help Meduza continue to bring news from Russia to readers around the world by setting up a monthly donation . It turned out that the assaults were linked to a “training program” launched by Alex Leslie — who brands himself as a “sex guru” and “seduction expert.” Leslie has built a business around workshops, webinars, courses, and “pickup guides.” He’s also published at least eight books with titles like Life Without Underwear and Hunting the Male . But Leslie is perhaps best known as the former mentor of model and escort Nastya Rybka (real name Anastasia Vashukevich), whose Instagram photos were at the center of a 2018 Anti-Corruption Foundation investigation into Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Shortly after that investigation was released, Leslie and Rybka were arrested in Thailand, where they had been hosting “sex training” seminars. Both received suspended sentences and were then deported . Upon returning to Russia, they were arrested on charges of involvement in prostitution. However, it appears the case never went to trial; Leslie and Rybka were quickly released from custody, and there were no reports of a conviction. Judging by their Instagram accounts — each with more than half a million followers — Rybka has spent the last few years living in Moscow and working on a blog for women, while Leslie has continued publishing books and leading “seduction” courses. Further reading ‘Go back to the kitchen’ Journalists at Glasnaya Media ask why so many Russian gamers hate women ‘Women are always complaining’ On June 17, Leslie announced a new “body training” session on his Telegram channel, writing, “Now’s the perfect time to join our team and pick up all the girls.” He instructed his followers on how to “push for sex.” The task, he said, involved approaching 30 strangers in 30 minutes and saying something to each one — like a compliment or a line like, “Hey, you’re hot, let’s have sex in the bathroom.” He also advised disregarding women’s objections, saying, “It’s no big deal if they complain. Women are always complaining to someone. Get used to it.” When reports emerged that some of the women targeted by his followers had gone to the police, Leslie responded: “Guys, you know why the girls are [reacting] so negatively? Because you’re doing it wrong. What did I say? Go up, grab her ass, and take her to the bathroom. And since you didn’t finish the job, they’re mad. You were supposed to take each one to the bathroom and fuck her there.” Leslie dismissed the women’s complaints to the authorities as “chick manipulations,” adding: “Thankfully, the police responded appropriately. They just blew them off. What’s the big deal if someone grabs your ass? If you didn’t like it — tell him to get lost. If you did — get to know him and sleep with him. That’s a healthy attitude.” Overall, Leslie has tried to seize on the media attention as a publicity opportunity. He has spoken frequently to journalists, promised to release a new “hardcore” training program, and claimed the criminal investigation had only boosted his status as a “cult figure.” “Might as well ban my books while you’re at it,” he quipped on June 26 — just before the publisher Eksmo announced it would pull his titles from sale. Leslie, who currently lives in Poland, doesn’t seem concerned that he’ll be arrested either. Further reading Russian high school textbook urges girls to ‘trick rapists’ and not to ‘provoke boys and men’ with short skirts, lipstick, and ‘wild colors’ ‘No concept of consent’ Alex Leslie has been teaching “seduction” techniques for nearly two decades. His first book on the subject was published back in 2006. In 2023, Baza ran an article on Russia’s enduring pickup scene, describing Leslie as “one of the country’s most notorious and scandalous pickup artists.” The story opened with an account from one of his students, describing an “exercise” that mirrors the same tactics Leslie’s followers appear to be using today: It was scary to do the assignment… I got into character, switched on the mindset of a bastard who’s allowed to do anything. The girls flinched, but I could feel they were into it. I walked up to one, grabbed her ass with my whole hand — she didn’t resist, just smiled. She said she had a boyfriend… Then came a string of failures. I lost the mindset, forgot I was allowed to do this — the girls went cold. One of them slapped me… I did the last few attempts even though I didn’t want to anymore. Psychologist Amina Nazaralieva told Baza that such practices amount to sexual violence and teach men to see women as objects. “What’s truly disturbing,” she said, “is that these men aren’t developing any concept of consent. […] This can increase the risk of future violence. Yes, there are men who lack confidence and need support in learning how to talk to women — but those skills should be grounded in mutual respect and consent.” Baza also noted that, under Russian law, men who grope underage girls in public risk facing criminal charges for lewd acts. “But if the girl is 16 or older,” the outlet explained, “the most a pickup artist is likely to face is a misdemeanor charge — a fine or up to 15 days of jail time.” On June 27, Russia’s state-run news agency TASS reported that two of Leslie’s alleged “students” had been arrested in Moscow and sentenced to 15 days for petty hooliganism related to street harassment. However, the Telegram channel Baza claimed the two men hadn’t actually trained under Leslie and had “simply decided to harass a passing woman.” Police also arrested Alexey Bashin, one of Leslie’s followers, on criminal charges of sexual violence. A fourth man, Danila Prygunkov, was sentenced to 11 days in jail for petty hooliganism, Mediazona reported . If you or someone you know has been a victim of rape or sexual assault, please reach out to one of the following resources for support: Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (for U.S. readers) Rape Crisis Network Europe (for E.U. readers) Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime (for Canadian readers)…
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has urged Russian citizens who are planning to travel to Azerbaijan or currently there to “carefully consider” the escalating diplomatic dispute between the two countries. “For those asking us whether they should plan their trips, what they should do, and how to behave given what Azerbaijani TV channels and news agencies are reporting: of course, if our citizens are in Azerbaijan or planning to go there, they need to carefully consider the current situation,” state media quoted her as saying. She also assured citizens that the Russian embassy in Azerbaijan is ready to assist relatives and close contacts of detained Russian citizens. According to Zakharova, Russian diplomats have received 11 inquiries “from people who recognized their relatives in footage broadcast by Azerbaijani media.” She added, “Our embassy is in contact with them and will continue to maintain communication.” Falling out Tit-for-tat arrests Two Azerbaijani suspects died in Russian police custody, triggering reciprocal arrests and escalating tensions between Moscow and Baku…
North Korea plans to triple the number of troops it has fighting alongside Russia against Ukraine, CNN reported Wednesday. Ukrainian intelligence estimates cited by the network suggest Pyongyang will send between 25,000 and 30,000 soldiers to join the war in the coming months. The Ukrainian report says there’s a “great possibility” that North Korean forces will take part in combat in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine “to strengthen the Russian contingent, including during the large-scale offensive operations.” The intelligence also indicates that Russian forces have started modifying aircraft to transport personnel. Additionally, CNN said it has obtained satellite images that appear to show a North Korean ship at a Russian port and cargo aircraft at North Korea’s Sunan airport. Earlier, South Korean intelligence reported that North Korea is preparing new troops for deployment to Russia. The reports suggested the additional North Korean forces could arrive as early as July or August, potentially coinciding with Russia’s plans for a new large-scale offensive in Ukraine.…
On Tuesday evening, Russian forces shelled the Ukrainian city of Kherson using artillery, hitting a hospital building, according to Governor Oleksandr Prokudin. The hospital sustained damage in the attack. Eight people were injured: five patients and three nurses. On Wednesday morning, Russian troops shelled Kherson again and attacked the nearby settlement of Antonivka with drones, local authorities said. One civilian was injured in Kherson and three more in Antonivka. Russian drones also struck Ukraine’s Kharkiv region overnight. In the city of Kharkiv, the strikes damaged a service station, an apartment building, a non-residential structure, an administrative building, and a public transport stop, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service. No casualties were reported. In the Kharkiv region’s Kupyansk district, drones struck the grounds of two agricultural enterprises, igniting hay and storage facilities. Three people were injured. In the Dnipropetrovsk region, drone attacks damaged a private business in Kryvyi Rih and a farm in the Samar district. One woman was injured. In the region’s Nikopol district, artillery fire and FPV drones damaged an apartment building, a private home, a garage, an outbuilding, and a power line. Four people were injured . In the Odesa region, drones targeted port and tourism infrastructure in the Izmail district, according to local authorities. No casualties were reported. hunting civilians in Kherson Hunted in Kherson What Russia’s deliberate drone attacks on Ukrainian civilians say about the future of war crimes…
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered a halt to the delivery of certain munitions to Ukraine, including dozens of missiles for the Patriot air defense system, NBC News reported . Several thousand 155-millimeter artillery shells will also not be sent, along with more than 100 Hellfire missiles, over 250 precision-guided GMLRS rockets, several dozen Stinger surface-to-air missiles and AIM air-to-air missiles, as well as grenade launchers, according to NBC’s sources in Congress and the Pentagon. The decision to suspend some missile deliveries to Ukraine was first reported on July 1 by Politico, which cited concerns that U.S. stockpiles of these weapons had been significantly depleted. The White House later confirmed the move, saying it was made “to put America’s interests first.” Ukrainian officials have consistently urged Western allies to ramp up shipments of weapons and ammunition to help defend against Russian airstrikes. On June 25, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with U.S. President Donald Trump in The Hague, where the two discussed the possible purchase of Patriot systems. No agreement was reached. Trump later said that Washington has few such systems and that the United States needs them for its own defense. recent Russian attacks ‘Russia’s approach hasn’t changed: they strike where people are likely to be’ Moscow’s latest attacks in Ukraine kill civilians in Kyiv, Odesa, Dnipro, and beyond…
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