Filter by Topics
Filter by Tags
89 of 906
Poisonings, cyberattacks, raids on the homes of family member, russian journalists are persecuted by their authoritarian home country even when in exile. Yet, media professionals in exile in Germany, their host country, are a vital part of an informed society and defend all of our rights to reliable information. Read the RSF report on it here.
RSF finds Russian journalists in Germany face transnational repression including surveillance, digital attacks, intimidation, pressure on relatives and even suspected poisonings. The report urges Germany and the EU to better protect exiled media through dedicated support, reporting mechanisms, sanctions and coordinated action to safeguard press freedom.
For weeks in the spring of 2026, residents of Moscow experienced major disruption as mobile internet shutdowns which had earlier affected several Russian regions finally reached the capital. While the partial shutdowns were softened in the following weeks, internet users across Russia continued to experience serious difficulties accessing most websites…
Following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, many independent Russian journalists and opposition politicians fled abroad, rebuilding their channels. This article argues that, operating from exile, they have fallen into a trap: creating great content, but the Kremlin controls it. They must shift to a radical new approach, teaching citizens inside Russia how to safely test reality.
In Belarus, remembering has become political. Exiled journalist Olga Bubich describes how documenting grief and protest can lead to arrest, as authorities tightly control both history and the present. Her Tagesspiegel essay explores a struggle over memory, truth, and who gets to record reality.
“People of Baikal” is an online media outlet that has been operating since 2019 in regions that other independent media outlets rarely reach – the Irkutsk and Buryatia region. The female journalists working for “People of Baikal” report on the life in small cities and villages, in which poverty and hopelessness coexist.
Thomas Erdbrink’s documentary series Onze man bij de vijand about Russia primarily features Russians who support president Putin and the war in Ukraine, says journalist Pavel Kanygin, who fled his country and now lives in Amsterdam. That’s certainly not the whole story, he emphasizes in this op-ed.
Operating largely from exile after being blocked in Belarus and disrupted by the war in Ukraine, Tribuna.com has rebuilt itself as a global, remote sports media platform. The piece shows how it adapted to displacement and political pressure by combining journalism, technology, and fan communities into a resilient, product-driven media model.
The Belarus government continued systematic persecution of the independent press within the overall context of its fight against dissent in 2025. The pressure on media workers intensified on the eve of Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s election on January 26, 2025 as well as in April 2025, when the few still operating independent regional media outlets suffered from searches and crackdowns in the governmental propaganda channels.
Nastassia Rouda, director of Belarusian outlet Nasha Niva, shares how her team continues reporting from exile in Vilnius. Using creative content, humor, and social media, they stay relevant inside Belarus despite political repression and economic hardships, keeping audiences engaged and preserving free media for Belarusians across generations.
As Belarus prepares for another presidential election under President Lukashenko, opposition leaders and activists – including those in exile – are divided over whether engaging in dialogue with the regime can advance change. While some see negotiation as tactical, others warn it legitimizes repression and sidelines independent and exiled voices pushing for democratic reform.
Larysa Shchyrakova from Homiel worked at Belsat almost from the very beginning, since 2008. The journalist did not have a quiet life even before 2020, but after the protests and mass repressions began, life turned into a waiting game — when will they come for her? Larysa says that when they really came, she exhaled, because she could no longer be afraid.
This report introduces the previously unknown Spyware ResidentBat used by the Belarussian secret service KGB. It targets Android phones and is installed through physical device access. Broad application permissions and an accessibility service allow the app access to a wide range of data, spanning phone calls, SMS, encrypted messenger chats and files on the phone.
Journalist and propaganda expert Pavlyuk Bykovsky analyzes the role propaganda plays in the Lukashenko regime and how it has evolved since the mass protests of 2020. Bykovsky’s contribution not only helps to understand the specific principles of the Lukashenko dictatorship, but also sheds light on the general mechanisms of propaganda and disinformation.
Since Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, almost every independent journalist has been exiled from Russia. For more than three years, journalists in exile have tried to continue their work from afar in a concerted effort to preserve the service of truth. Ten days ago, the Kremlin added Kostyuchenko to its list of foreign agents.
Ivan Kolpakov is the editor-in-chief at Meduza, the largest independent media outlet focusing on Russia. The organization has been in exile since Kolpakov co-founded the organization in 2014 with Galina Timchenko. DW Akademie spoke to the journalist and editor about what it is like to spend more than a decade reporting on his country from abroad.
The collection tells the story of the laureates of the “Voice of the Freedom Generation” award, founded by the Belarusian PEN in partnership with the Human Rights Center “Viasna”, the Belarusian Association of Journalists, Press Club Belarus and Free Press for Eastern Europe endowment fund.
A mission can mean many things: a diplomatic post, a military assignment, or spreading the gospel to convert nonbelievers. But journalist Ekaterina Fomina also calls her work a mission. The independent Russian reporter fled to Berlin shortly after Vladimir Putin escalated his war in February 2022. Since then, she has been reporting on Russia and Ukraine from exile.