Sobchak on the run, Putin’s nuke drills, RT host cancelled
Horrible News with Kirill Martynov
Vladimir Putin has had a busy week. The president oversaw another round of nuclear drills and then made a “historic speech” at the session of the Valdai Discussion Club.
Russian media personality Ksenia Sobchak was forced to flee Russia after searches at her home and the arrest of her commercial director. Propagandist Anton Krasovsky was suspended from his job at Russia Today, while the Russian State Duma approved the first reading of the new “LGBT propaganda” law.
The Moscow State University’s Faculty of Journalism is ready to train new military correspondents in case Russia runs out of them. And Chechnya’s Kadyrov has declared jihad on Ukraine. It was announced a couple of days ago that over 20 fighters associated with Kadyrov were killed in Ukraine’s strike on their base in the occupied Kherson region.
Every Saturday, Kirill Martynov, editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta Europe, gives his take on what happened in Russia and outside of it over the past week.
My enemy’s enemy
How Ukrainians and Russia’s ethnic minority groups are making common cause in opposing Russian imperialism
Cold case
The Ukrainian Holocaust survivor who froze to death at home in Kyiv amid power cuts in the depths of winter
Cold war
Kyiv residents are enduring days without power as Russian attacks and freezing winter temperatures put their lives at risk
Scraping the barrel
The Kremlin is facing a massive budget deficit due to the low cost of Russian crude oil
Beyond the Urals
How the authorities in Chelyabinsk are floundering as the war in Ukraine draws ever closer
Family feud
Could Anna Stepanova’s anti-war activism see her property in Russia be confiscated and handed to her pro-Putin cousin?
Cries for help
How a Kazakh psychologist inadvertently launched a new social model built on women supporting women
Deliverance
How one Ukrainian soldier is finally free after spending six-and-a-half years as a Russian prisoner of war
Watch your steppe
Five new films worth searching out from Russia’s regions and republics