The Naked Pravda

If major events and cultural shifts are what elevate music, now is an excellent time to take stock of what’s happening in Russia, more than 600 days after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the imposition of militarized censorship, and the spread of wartime social norms. To learn about Russia’s contemporary music scene and how the invasion influences popular trends, Meduza spoke to music journalists Denis Boyarinov and Lev Gankin. For an insider’s perspective, The Naked Pravda also sat down with Kirill Ivanov, the leader of the band Самое Большое Простое Число (The Largest Prime Number). Timestamps for this episode: (3:42) Rating the level of freedom for musicians in Russia today(6:48) DDT and rock culture(9:22) Face and rap music(11:51) Censorship(16:14) The Safe Internet League(28:27) Kirill Ivanov, frontman of the band The Largest Prime Number(43:16) Ultra-patriotic musicians(54:07) “Recommended” Z-music listening Как поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

In August, a wave of police raids sent a chill through Russia’s migrant communities. By all appearances, the authorities were trying to track down draft-age men from Central Asia who had recently acquired Russian citizenship but failed to complete their mandatory military registration. Officers in multiple cities handed out military summonses on the spot and dragged migrant workers off to enlistment offices by force. There, they ran the risk of ending up like the hundreds of other Central Asians recruited to fight alongside Russian soldiers and work in occupied regions of Ukraine.  These police raids were at the center of a recent story published by Meduza’s weekly long-reads newsletter, The Beet. For more on Russia’s covert efforts to conscript newly naturalized citizens and migrant workers from Central Asia, The Beet editor Eilish Hart spoke to the story’s author, freelance journalist Sher Khashimov, and researcher Temur Umarov, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin.  Timestamps for this episode: (2:25) What do we know about the recent police raids targeting migrant workers from Central Asia?(6:00) What Russian officials are saying about naturalized citizens(8:54) How do migrant workers view the recent police raids and shifts in official rhetoric?(11:33) Why is Russia such a popular destination for migrant workers from Central Asia, even in wartime?(19:19) Why might acquiring Russian citizenship appeal to migrant workers?(28:36) Are Russia’s recruitment efforts damaging ties with Central Asian countries?Как поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

This episode of 'The Naked Pravda' discusses the economic war between Russia and the West in the conflict with Ukraine. Topics include Western advantages and miscalculations by Putin, the impact of Western sanctions on Russia, hopes for Ukraine to receive reparations, and securing peace on the ground.

The podcast discusses the exodus of Armenian population from Nagorno-Karabakh and the role of Russian peacekeepers. It explores Russia's reputation as a partner in the region, the tension between Yerevan and Moscow, and the challenges and failures of peacekeeping operations. The episode also addresses the concerns and challenges in the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict.

The podcast explores Vladimir Putin's recent anti-Semitic statements and the historical context of anti-Semitism in Russia. It delves into Putin's perception of Jewish people influenced by Soviet state propaganda and the opportunistic use of anti-Semitic stereotypes for political gain.

On June 23, 2023, hours before Yevgeny Prigozhin would shock the world by staging a mutiny against the Russian military, Meduza co-founder and CEO Galina Timchenko learned that her iPhone had been infected months earlier with “Pegasus.” The spyware’s Israeli designers market the product as a crimefighting super-tool against “terrorists, criminals, and pedophiles,” but states around the world have abused Pegasus to track critics and political adversaries who sometimes end up arrested or even murdered. Access to Pegasus isn’t cheap: Researchers believe the service costs tens of millions of dollars, meaning that somebody — some government agency out there — paid maybe a million bucks to hijack Timchenko’s smartphone. Why would somebody do that? How would somebody do that? And who could have done it? For answers, The Naked Pravda turned to two experts: Natalia Krapiva, tech-legal counsel for Access Now, a nonprofit organization committed to “defending and extending” the digital civil rights of people worldwide, and John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, an interdisciplinary laboratory at the University of Toronto that investigates digital espionage against civil society. Timestamps for this episode: (3:39) Galina Timchenko’s hacked iPhone is the first confirmed case of a Pegasus infection against a Russian journalist(6:16) NSO Group’s different contract tiers for Pegasus users(9:59) How aware is NSO Group of Pegasus’s rampant misuse?(12:29) Why hasn’t Europe done more to restrict the use of such spyware?(15:50) Russian allies using Pegasus(17:58) E.U. members using Pegasus(21:37) Training required to use Pegasus and the spyware’s technical side(27:38) The forensics needed to detect a Pegasus infection(35:46) Is Pegasus built more to find criminals or members of civil society?(40:10) Imagining a global moratorium on military-grade spyware(43:22) “A German solution”(45:14) Where the West goes from hereКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

This week’s show tackles Russia’s 2023 regional elections, scheduled for Sunday, September 10, though several regions will keep polling stations open all weekend. “Up for grabs” in contests with mostly predetermined outcomes are 26 gubernatorial offices and seats in 20 regional parliaments. There’s also a whole mess of municipal and local races. Occupying forces in four regions of Ukraine are staging votes, too. Foreign Policy Research Institute Eurasia Program Fellow András Tóth-Czifra joined the podcast to explain what’s at stake, how Russian voting has evolved over the years, and why some pockets of competitive politics persist. To learn about the challenges of monitoring Russian elections today and the remaining opportunities for “protest voting,” The Naked Pravda spoke to University of Bonn social scientist Dr. Galina Selivanova. Timestamps for this episode: (2:20) What’s at stake in this weekend’s voting(7:54) Pockets of competition(16:12) “Golos” election monitors(28:51) How election fraud works in Russia(32:35) Apathetic voters and protest potential at the pollsКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

How complicit are ordinary Russians in the invasion of Ukraine? That’s a question at the core of Russia’s War, a book published this May, where author Jade McGlynn explores what she calls “the grievances, lies, and half-truths that pervade the Russian worldview,” arguing that too many people in Russia have “invested too deeply in the Kremlin’s alternative narratives” to see the war in Ukraine as the brutal assault it is. Dr. McGlynn specializes in Russian media, memory, and foreign policy at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. Follow her here on 𝕏 (formerly known as Twitter). You can find Russia’s War on Amazon and wherever books are sold. Timestamps for this episode: (2:13) What’s so special about PIR Center director Vladimir Orlov?(8:03) Russians’ moral culpability in the war(13:30) Zelensky’s role and the war’s heroes and villains(15:43) Analyzing Russian Telegram channels during the war(19:11) Russia’s anti-Kremlin opposition during the war(22:30) Changing Russians’ minds from abroadКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

A new Russian history textbook justifies the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, with pages dedicated to Putin and Stalin. The podcast dissects the authors' backgrounds, explores Mgimos University's controversy, and analyzes the trend of rewriting history. It criticizes the selective and emotional aspects of the textbook, highlighting its failure to create a compelling narrative.

“This is a history of a place that doesn’t exist. There is no such thing as Eastern Europe anymore. No one comes from there.”  These are the opening lines of Goodbye, Eastern Europe, a new book by writer and historian Jacob Mikanowski that offers a sweeping history of a region that he argues is disappearing. Not in the literal sense, of course; the lands historically considered “Eastern Europe” are very much still there. But the term itself (much like “post-Soviet” and “former Soviet republics”) has fallen out of fashion. And the entangled diversity that was once the hallmark of Eastern European societies was swept away by the violence of the 20th century — so much so that Mikanowski considers it a “lost world.” Recounting centuries of history in just a few hundred pages, Mikanowski’s book takes readers on a journey across the region stretching between present-day Germany and Russia, going as far north as the Baltic countries and as far south as the Balkans. And while the empires that once ruled there and the nation-states that succeeded them are part of the picture, Goodbye, Eastern Europe is far from your standard political history. Instead, Mikanowski weaves together years of research and travel experience with his own family’s past, opening a window into the complexities and absurdities of everyday life.  “A lot of histories of Eastern Europe [...] are very much like a battle between superpowers,” Mikanowski tells Eilish Hart, editor of Meduza’s weekly newsletter The Beet, on this week’s show. “I want to tell the story of what’s happening in between. Because to me, that’s the Eastern European experience — especially in the 20th century. Finding agency amid a world that’s constantly robbing you of it.” Timestamps for this episode: (2:12) What — and where — is Eastern Europe? And in what sense is it disappearing?(4:37) Blending academic research with travel experience and family history(11:07) Why there’s more to Eastern European history than “Hitler versus Stalin” (13:56) Eastern Europe as a “lost world” of interwoven diversity(16:50) What’s missed when history is written from imperial capitals?(19:21) The politics of history in Eastern Europe todayКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно