The death of Alexey Navalny

U.S. President Joe Biden took less than two minutes to bring up Russia in his 2024 State of the Union address. “If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you, he will not,” Biden said, prompting a standing ovation. “But Ukraine can stop Putin if we stand with Ukraine and provide the weapons it needs to defend itself.” 

An unwavering commitment to supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russia has been at the center of the Biden administration’s foreign policy for more than two years now. But Washington’s relations with Moscow and Kyiv looked very different when Biden took office back in 2021. For the inside scoop on team Biden’s Russia and Ukraine policy, and how Moscow’s 2022 invasion turned all their plans upside down, Meduza turns to Politico national security reporter Alex Ward, the author of The Internationalists: The Fight To Restore American Foreign Policy After Trump. 

Timestamps for this episode:

• (5:07) How did team Biden originally plan to handle relations with Moscow and Kyiv?
• (11:40) How did the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal influence the response to Russia’s looming Ukraine invasion?
• (15:46) Why did U.S. intelligence get Russia’s invasion plan right but its military capabilities wrong? 
• (23:40) What did the first two years tell us about team Biden’s approach to foreign policy?
• (26:52) What will the Biden administration be remembered for?

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

Last month, there was a sudden panic in the United States when House Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner issued a statement warning of a “serious national security threat” and demanded that President Biden declassify related information. The American media subsequently reported that Turner was referring to alleged Russian plans to deploy nuclear weapons in space, though U.S. National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby later clarified that the matter concerns anti-satellite weapons that cannot be used to attack people or to strike targets on Earth. He explained that Russia’s development of the technology is concerning but does not pose an immediate threat.

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

Timestamps for this episode:

• (3:20) The (im)practicality of nuclear weapons in space
• (5:31) Imagining a nuclear blast in orbit
• (9:59) The feasibility of nuclear-powered space weapons
• (28:02) The 1967 Outer Space Treaty and its modern-day implications
• (31:26) Common misconceptions about space in movies

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

To mark the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Moscow’s ongoing campaign to seize more territory, Meduza sat down with the author of The War Came To Us: Life and Death in Ukraine, Christopher Miller, the Ukraine correspondent for The Financial Times and a foremost journalist covering the country who was there on the ground when the first Russian missiles struck and troops stormed over the border. In the book, Miller recounts how his life became intertwined with Ukraine and then Russia’s brutal invasion.

Find The War Came To Us at Amazon and wherever books are sold.

Timestamps for this episode:

• (3:03) How did you decide which stories to include in the book?
• (11:18) When did you realize you were witnessing world history, and what did it feel like?
• (16:53) What kind of people have been on the ground working as journalists during the most pivotal moments of Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution and the fight against the Russian invasion?
• (23:08) How has the war changed the nature and critical spirit of journalism in Ukraine?
• (32:01) What would you say to potential international readers experiencing war fatigue who hesitate to pick up a book about Ukraine?

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

Meduza reports on opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s death in prison and speaks to experts about his legacy and the political science behind autocrats eliminating dissident threats. This week’s guests are Meduza journalists Evgeny Feldman and Maxim Trudolyubov and scholars Graeme Robertson and Erica Frantz.

Timestamps for this episode:

• (0:43) Photographer Evgeny Feldman reflects on what Navalny meant to him
• (4:02) The circumstances surrounding Navalny’s death
• (6:33) Maxim Trudolyubov discusses Navalny’s impact on Russian politics
• (14:32) Graeme Robertson puts Navalny’s death in the context of the Putin regime’s crackdown on liberalism
• (18:21) Erica Frantz explains why political prisoners can still threaten autocrats from behind bars

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

After a year and a half of negotiations, Yandex founder Arkady Volozh and the company’s foreign shareholders have reached a deal to part ways with Yandex’s Russian assets. The Russian IT giant’s Netherlands-based parent company announced Monday, February 5, that it will sell a large portion of its operations to a consortium of Russian investors before rebranding and continuing to develop its remaining international properties.

Yandex’s restructuring has been underway for more than a year. Meduza has reported together with the news outlet The Bell on the backroom negotiations that have been underway to ensure that Yandex’s core Russian assets pass to Kremlin-approved hands, and now we’re finally there. The Naked Pravda spoke to Meduza journalist Svetlana Reiter about the ins and outs of the deal.

Timestamps for this episode:

• (2:16) Review of recent news
• (5:38) Meet Yandex’s new owners
• (10:18) The future of Yandex
• (18:56) Yandex International

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

The Russian government has a message for its citizens living in exile: nowhere is safe for you. For years, it’s made this threat clear by subjecting its critics abroad to intimidation, forced repatriation, and assassination attempts. And just as the Kremlin has taken increasingly draconian measures to silence dissent at home since launching the full-scale war in Ukraine, it’s also devised new tactics for targeting activists, journalists, and politicians far beyond its borders. For insight into how Moscow’s approach to transnational repression has changed over the last two years, The Naked Pravda turned to journalist and activist Dan Storyev, who serves as the managing editor of OVD-Info’s English-language edition, and Yana Gorokhovskaia, the research director for strategy and design at Freedom House.

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No country can be free without independent media. In January 2023, the Russian authorities outlawed Meduza, banning our work in the country our colleagues call home. Just supporting Meduza carries the risk of criminal prosecution for Russian nationals, which is why we’re turning to our international audience for help. Your assistance makes it possible for thousands of people in Russia to read Meduza and stay informed. Consider a small but recurring contribution to provide the most effective support. Please donate here.

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Timestamps for this episode

• (10:22) Case study: An abduction in Kyrgyzstan
• (16:40) The goal of Moscow’s repressions abroad
• (20:10) How countries unwittingly “work hand-in-hand with the Kremlin”
• (23:41) How the Kremlin’s tactics have changed since 2022
• (28:29) How Russia takes advantage of the Interpol system to repatriate citizens
• (34:18) Transnational repression by Belarus

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

Boris Nadezhdin’s surname has its root in the Russian word for “hope,” and he’s inspired just that in tens of thousands of voters as the politician with an antiwar message who’s come the furthest in the country’s byzantine bureaucracy for presidential candidacy. Nadezhdin’s campaign says it’s collected roughly 200,000 signatures, which is twice what it technically needs for the Central Election Commission to add his name to the ballot in March. While the commission’s approval remains unlikely, the Nadezhdin campaign has been a major news event for antiwar Russians, especially in the ever-growing diaspora, where thousands of people have lined up in cities across Europe and the Caucasus to offer their signatures.

Nadezhdhin’s allies have no illusions about his prospects, but showing their support for an antiwar challenger to Vladimir Putin has quickly become the opposition’s first visible civic movement in some time. To understand how this happened, who Nadezhdin is as a politician, and how opposition politics has worked throughout Russia’s Putin era, The Naked Pravda welcomes back Dr. Маrgarita Zavadskaya, a senior research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

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No country can be free without independent media. In January 2023, the Russian authorities outlawed Meduza, banning our work in the country our colleagues call home. Just supporting Meduza carries the risk of criminal prosecution for Russian nationals, which is why we’re turning to our international audience for help. Your assistance makes it possible for thousands of people in Russia to read Meduza and stay informed. Consider a small but recurring contribution to provide the most effective support. Please donate here.

***

Timestamps for this episode:

• (5:43) Nadezhdin’s Political Career and Ideology
• (9:58) Understanding the Nature of Russian Liberal Politicians
• (19:26) The Role of Elections in Authoritarian Regimes
• (26:04) A Hopeful Note: The Power of Collective Action

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

The U.S. government is reportedly becoming more “assertive” about backing the confiscation of roughly $300 billion in frozen Russian sovereign assets to provide an alternative funding stream for Kyiv. The news comes amid faltering efforts in Europe and Washington to approve the budgetary allocations needed to sustain aid for Ukraine, which presumably makes it even more attractive to force Russia to foot the bill. Kyiv’s most ardent supporters in the West say the seizure of the immobilized Russian state assets is long overdue. In fact, that the seizure hasn’t happened already is both alarming and confounding to many people.

To understand what’s keeping the West from grabbing this Russian money and what it will take for the confiscation to go ahead, Meduza spoke to journalist, economist, and political analyst Alexander Kolyandr and welcomed back Maximilian Hess, the founder of Enmetena Advisory and a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and the author of “Economic War: Ukraine and the Global Conflict Between Russia and the West.”

Timestamps for this episode

• (4:33) What and where are these frozen Russian assets?
• (8:46) Confiscation’s potential impact on the world economy
• (12:41) Implications for Western countries
• (14:55) Understanding the resistance to confiscation
• (36:09) Barriers to asset confiscation

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

The Naked Pravda explores how Russia’s mobilization drive is pressuring society and capturing men for the invasion of Ukraine. This episode features Project “Get Lost” creator and director Grigory Sverdlin, whose human rights group helps Russians evade the draft and leave Russia (among other things). For a geopolitical perspective on Moscow’s mobilization, Meduza spoke to Dr. Stefan Wolff, a professor of international security at the University of Birmingham in England and the cofounder of Navigating the Vortex, a newsletter on the geopolitical and geoeconomic context of events and developments around the world.

Timestamps for this episode

• (3:27) Project “Get Lost”
• (5:10) The challenges of avoiding mobilization
• (9:15) Consequences for ignoring a military summons
• (12:24) Military recruiter tactics
• (15:46) Mobilization’s social and demographic impact in Russia
• (29:35) The future of mobilization in Russia and Ukraine

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

In a special holiday departure from The Naked Pravda’s usual coverage of Russian politics and news, Meduza in English’s social media editor Ned Garvey and senior news editor Sam Breazeale chat about their personal experiences living in Russia, what they found surprising there as Americans, and what still stands out today in their memories of the country.

Timestamps for this episode:

• (8:52) Encounters with seedy characters and police
• (12:58) Travels around the country
• (15:01) Surprises in daily life
• (18:00) Holiday memories
• (23:06) Friendships in Russia
• (26:45) Stereotypes: fact vs. fiction

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