Meduza

The Kremlin spent years building a messenger to replace Telegram. Now it’s reportedly telling soldiers the substitute is too insecure to use at the front.

Russian troops fighting in Ukraine have been advised to stop using Max — the Kremlin-backed “national messenger” app designed ...
Meduza

A Russian investigator worked with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to rescue child sexual abuse victims. Now he’s charged with treason.

On February 5, 2025, reports emerged that Russia had arrested Ivan Semenikhin, an operative with the Interior Ministry’s ...
Meduza

Russia’s military recruitment numbers remain steady, but how long can the regions foot the bill? Meduza asks researcher Janis Kluge.

It’s no secret that Russia relies on high salaries and sign-on bonuses to recruit more soldiers to fight in Ukraine. Despite ...
Meduza

Russia reportedly restricts recruitment of foreign fighters from dozens of ‘friendly’ countries

Russia has reportedly issued a “stop-list” to military recruiters, banning citizens from as many as 43 countries from enlisting to fight in Ukraine, according to the independent media outlet iStories.
Meduza

From Cold War interceptors to Ukraine: how Russia came to park spy satellites next to the West’s most sensitive tech in orbit

Two Russian satellites have spent years quietly maneuvering along Earth’s geostationary belt — the ring of orbits 36,000 kilometers (roughly 22,370 miles) above the equator, where satellites appear ...
Meduza

Ex-Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold told Jeffrey Epstein he hosted Putin’s wife and daughter on his superyacht

Jeffrey Epstein’s interest in Vladimir Putin is well documented in the files released by the U.S. Justice Department in late ...
Meduza

Prices are up, polls are down, and Kremlin officials think propaganda can fix the problem before the parliamentary elections, Meduza sources say

With Russia’s parliamentary elections less than a year away, the Kremlin has begun fine-tuning its information strategy.
Meduza

Vologda’s governor said his people were ‘dying out.’ In one year, he cut abortions by 82 percent, sending women fleeing to neighboring regions for a procedure that ...

Abortion remains legal in Russia, but access to the procedure has become almost impossible for women in at least one region: ...
Meduza

‘No Z.’ Disappearing filters. Soldiers in uniform. Code words. ‘Traditional values.’ How war transformed dating in Russia.

The war against Ukraine has altered even the most intimate corners of daily life in Russia — including dating. Immediately ...
Meduza

Russia is returning to the Paralympics, and Ukrainian officials vow to boycott

The Winter Paralympics will begin on March 6 in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, exactly one month after the Winter Olympics ...
Meduza

A California man tried to beat a weapons smuggling sentence by donating the evidence to the Russian military. A Moscow court sent him to prison for four years.

A Moscow court sentenced U.S. citizen Robert Mao to four years in prison for weapons smuggling. Court records reviewed by the ...
Meduza

Moscow’s Gulag museum forced Russians to confront their own history. The Kremlin has decided that era is over. A new ‘Museum of Memory’ has one villain: the Nazis.

Russia is turning one of its last major spaces for confronting Soviet-era repression into a showcase for state-sanctioned patriotism. The Gulag History Museum in Moscow — long a rare institutional ...