119 of 848

Russian Media-in-Exile Faces Existential Crises

  • New Eastern Europe
  • R. Taylor Robinson

For Meduza, Mediazona and Radio Free Europe, their readership within Russia has declined dramatically since the beginning of the war. According to Litavrin, Mediazona has lost half of its subscribers since the start of the war and now has only 5,000. However, he also said that Mediazona’s audience increased during the 2023 attempted coup.

Read more

Becoming an Enemy of the State: Finding Belonging in Exile

  • DW Akademie
  • Diana Shahbazyan

When journalist Olga Churakova was declared a “foreign agent” by her own government, she had to rebuild her life in exile. She found a new sense of belonging in a community of anonymous podcast listeners. In this piece, Churakova shares with DW Akademie her story.

Read more

Article by Russian Exiled Journalist Pavel Kanygin

  • Het Parool
  • Pavel Kanygin

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.

Read more

Young Voices Under Pressure

  • russian life

Censorship, recruitment attempts by the FSB, propaganda in universities, forced emigration, anonymous bylines, and financial hardship are among the manage challenges that young Russian journalists face today. Vazhnye Istory spoke with several early-career journalists about the realities of working in the profession in Russia today.

Read more

Beaten & Poisoned: Elena Kostyuchenko Keeps Fighting

  • The Chronicle
  • Sophie Levenson

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.

Read more

“If You Don’t Support Exile Media, It Will Disappear”

  • DW Akademie
  • Alex Bodine

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.

Read more

“I feel obligated”: Exiled Russian Woman Fights Against Putin

  • Berliner Morgenpost
  • Hans Cord Hartmann

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.

Read more (DE)

“I Won’t Give my Mother to Putin.”

  • Frankfurter Allgemeine
  • Artur Weigandt

Her investigations took her to the most dangerous places in Russia: A conversation with journalist Elena Kostyuchenko about responsibility, guilt, and her toxic relationship with her country.

Read more (DE)

Propaganda Monitor – The Russian Edition

  • RSF

Defending trustworthy news means knowing how to counter the propaganda tactics that oppose reliable reporting to further ideological goals. To this end, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has published a new report compiling all the content from The Propaganda Monitor, a website dedicated to exposing the way propaganda and disinformation operate so they can be tackled.

Read more

Can Russian Media in Exile Survive Moscow’s Information War?

  • Presseclub Concordia
  • Mirjana Tomić

Conversation with Galina Timchenko and Ivan Kolpakov, co-founders of Meduza, CEO and editor-in-chief respectively. Meduza is one of the most important independent media outlets outside of Russia, about Russia, and for Russia, published in Russian and in English.

Watch

Media Maker Sees a “War of Attrition” on Exile Media

  • Der Standard

Galina Timchenko and Ivan Kolpakov from the exile outlet Meduza describe their struggle to keep the independent media platform alive amid heavy internet blocks in Russia and growing financial pressure. Timchenko calls it a “war of attrition” waged by the Kremlin against free media.

Read more (DE)

Schools, Church, War – How the Russian State Shapes Youth

  • taz
  • Tigran Petrosyan

The latest episode of “Our Window to Russia” focuses on the lives of young people in Russia. What’s happening in schools and universities? How present is state propaganda in daily life? And what role do church and state play in shaping the next generation? We speak with journalist Ekaterina Martynova from DOXA.

Listen (DE)

Behind Russia’s Digital Iron Curtain: The West Online

  • Swissinfo.ch
  • Elena Servettaz

Swissinfo asked Olga Sadovskaya, vice-chair of rights group The Crew Against TortureExternal link and vice-president of the World Organization Against TortureExternal link, to demonstrate how Russia’s digital Iron Curtain works with and without a VPN. [Spoiler: Swissinfo’s website doesn’t load in the country without one.]

Read more

Exile Journalism (with Sergey Lukashevskiy)

  • Junge Presse

In this podcast episode, we talk to Sergey Lukashevskiy about his work as a Russian exile journalist in Germany. Since 2022, he has been building “Radio Sakharov” as an exile media outlet. He discusses the challenges of exile journalism, human rights in Russia, and reporting on a country he can no longer return to.

Listen

How the YouTube Block Pushed Russians Back Into the Arms of Television

  • Meduza

Last summer, Russian authorities began throttling YouTube playback speeds, rendering the popular video platform practically unusable. This has pushed many Russians to change their media consumption habits. Meduza analyzes the current and potential consequences of the Kremlin’s ongoing campaign against YouTube.

Read more

Audience Strategies of Russian Media in Exile

  • Reuters Institute
  • Maria Kiseleva

In a report on audience strategies, Reuters Institute journalist fellow Maria Kiseleva examines which platforms Russian exiled media use to continue reaching audiences inside the country. The report, which focuses on platform shifts and monetization strategies, also draws on research by the JX Fund.

Read more

From Exiled Journalist to ‘Terrorist’ in Russia

  • DOXA
  • Aron Ouzilevski

“Before I was just seen as a journalist in exile. Now, no one in Russia wants to be linked to someone labeled a terrorist.” Armen Aramyan, DOXA Journal’s Founding Editor, speaks about his recent arrest in absentia, the spread of global authoritarianism, and the state of independent Russian media in exile.

Read more