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PODCAST

The Naked Pravda

Медуза / Meduza

Meduza’s English-language podcast, The Naked Pravda highlights how our top reporting intersects with the wider research and expertise that exists about Russia. The broader context of Meduza’s in-depth, original journalism isn’t always clear, which is where this show comes in. Here you’ll hear from the world’s community of Russia experts, activists, and reporters about issues that are at the heart of Meduza’s stories and crucial to major events in and around Russia.

news & politics

All Episodes

00:33:17

Lucian Kim explains how a generational clash over...

The Naked Pravda ·

2026/02/24

On the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, The Naked Pravda speaks with journalist and author Lucian Kim to ask the questions that still don’t have settled answers: Was this war the product of one man’s radicalization, or something deeper — an imperial culture that generates aggression with or without orders from the top? Why didn’t Putin march on Kyiv in 2014, when Ukraine had no army and most of its citizens didn’t yet see Russia as an enemy? And is Putin really the

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00:25:39

Unpacking the economics behind Russia’s military...

The Naked Pravda ·

2026/02/20

It’s no secret that Russia relies on high salaries and sign-on bonuses to recruit soldiers to fight in Ukraine. Despite staggering battlefield losses, an estimated 30,000 men still enlist every month. But after four years of full-scale war, the cost of finding volunteers is only rising steadily, and the burden is falling on Russia’s regions. Why have hundreds of thousands of men joined the Russian army? How much does it cost to sustain recruitment? And is it only a matter of time before Vladimir

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00:35:09

Russia has crushed open defiance in occupied Ukraine....

The Naked Pravda ·

2026/02/12

As the full-scale invasion of Ukraine enters its fifth year, resistance to Russian occupation has undergone a radical transformation. The public displays of defiance that defined the war’s early days — with civilians blocking tanks and holding street protests — have long been crushed by the Kremlin’s ruthless occupation regime. By blending systematic brutality, bureaucracy, and pervasive surveillance, Russia has sought to extinguish dissent and erase Ukrainian identity in occupied regions. But this

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00:29:07

What happens when you drunk-text the FBI about...

The Naked Pravda ·

2026/02/06

In this week’s episode, host Kevin Rothrock sits down with RFE/RL senior international correspondent Mike Eckel to discuss his January 28 investigation into the bizarre case of Nomma Zarubina: The FSB, Lies, and Drunk Texting the FBI. A 35-year-old Russian woman and mother of a young daughter, Zarubina was jailed in Manhattan this past December — not for traditional espionage or even “espionage-lite,” but after a spiral of erratic behavior that included lying to the FBI about her contacts with

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00:44:04

Historian William Jay Risch looks back at Euromaidan...

The Naked Pravda ·

2026/01/14

As the full-scale invasion of Ukraine nears its four-year anniversary, The Naked Pravda looks back even further to the origins of the conflict that began nearly 12 years ago. This episode features a deep dive into the 2013–14 Euromaidan Revolution and its counter-movement, the Antimaidan. William Jay Risch, a professor of Russian and Eastern European history at Georgia College, joins the podcast to discuss his forthcoming book, Ukraine’s Euromaidan: From Revolutionary Euphoria to the Madness

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00:45:24

Is Trump’s Venezuela operation a ‘gift to Putin,’ and...

The Naked Pravda ·

2026/01/09

At first glance, the U.S. capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro might look like an obvious disaster for Vladimir Putin. Russia has lost a key partner, and the prospect of Venezuelan oil flooding the market could depress prices even more, further constraining the Kremlin’s ability to fund its war against Ukraine. Then there’s the embarrassing contrast between the U.S. operation in Caracas, which was over in hours, and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which is now entering its fifth

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00:28:15

Moscow Times opinion editor Charlie Hancock discusses...

The Naked Pravda ·

2025/12/23

Opinion journalism on Russia has become a high-stakes enterprise since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine, shaped by audiences sharply divided by politics and geography. At the center of these pressures are editors tasked with deciding which arguments deserve a platform, how much context readers need, and what constitutes responsible discourse. Few desks confront these challenges more directly than the opinion section of The Moscow Times.Against that backdrop, The Naked Pravda spoke with

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00:35:25

Pavel Durov’s Russian biographer explains the...

The Naked Pravda ·

2025/12/16

Earlier this year, Telegram raised $1.7 billion from convertible bonds — funds earmarked to pay off debt due next year, leaving about $745 million in surplus. In December 2024, in its first profitable year, the company reportedly earned a profit of $540 million on revenue of $1.4 billion. This year, Telegram’s profits are expected to top $700 million on $2 billion in revenue. The social network reportedly has more than 1 billion monthly active users, including 15 million paid subscribers — a figure

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00:35:16

Simon Shuster on the fall of Andriy Yermak

The Naked Pravda ·

2025/12/09

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been without a chief of staff for more than a week. His former right-hand man, Andriy Yermak, resigned on November 28, hours after anti-corruption agents raided his apartment in Kyiv. The investigators were looking into a $100-million kickback scheme in Ukraine’s energy sector that has already cost several high-level officials their posts.The timing of the biggest political scandal of Zelensky’s presidency couldn’t have been worse: news of the scheme

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00:24:17

Andrei Sannikov on Lukashenko’s latest gambit — and...

The Naked Pravda ·

2025/12/05

Belarusian pro-democracy activist Andrei Sannikov recently joined Beet editor Eilish Hart for a conversation recorded on the sidelines of the Halifax International Security Forum. The interview focused on the Trump administration’s growing engagement with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, including efforts to secure the release of more than a thousand political prisoners. In these negotiations, Lukashenko has leveraged a tactic honed by his regime over decades of authoritarian rule.

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00:31:35

Russia’s elites once dreaded war. Now, they fear peace.

The Naked Pravda ·

2025/11/22

In his 2024 state-of-the-nation address, Vladimir Putin declared that the word “elite” had lost much of its credibility. Russia’s “real elite,” he said, are those who serve their country: “the workers and warriors, reliable, trustworthy people who have proven their loyalty to Russia through their deeds.” It’s safe to assume that these words sent a chill through Russia’s elite circles, where top officials, business leaders, and military figures have been jockeying to hold on to their positions for

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00:32:18

Elena Kostyuchenko explains why E.U. multiple-entry...

The Naked Pravda ·

2025/11/14

More than 500,000 Russians were granted visas to the European Union’s Schengen zone in 2024 — nearly half of which allow for multiple entry over many years. The visitor numbers are down by 90 percent compared with pre-pandemic 2019, but half a million people still isn’t nothing. And it’s about to seem astronomical, following a recent decision by the European Union to introduce a ban on multi-entry visas to the Schengen zone for Russian citizens.Many have welcomed the E.U.’s new policy as long

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00:37:07

Julia Ioffe’s ‘Motherland’

The Naked Pravda ·

2025/10/29

Journalist Julia Ioffe returns to The Naked Pravda to discuss her new book, Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy, which was recently listed as a finalist for the National Book Award. Julia describes her years-long writing process, the blending of memoir and historical analysis, and the unique perspective provided by the narratives of women from the top echelons of Soviet and Russian society. The episode provides a detailed look at the complexities of Soviet

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00:30:07

Four scenarios for the next chapter in Russia’s war...

The Naked Pravda ·

2025/10/09

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has now passed the three-and-a-half-year mark, and there is still no end in sight. The Trump administration’s recent push to negotiate a ceasefire ground to a halt in early September, after Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky rejected Vladimir Putin’s proposal to meet in Moscow, dismissing the invitation as a sign that his Russian counterpart has no desire to negotiate.Meanwhile, on the battlefield in Ukraine, Russian troops are continuing their offensive

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00:26:26

Here’s what you do when Russia won’t stay out of your...

The Naked Pravda ·

2025/09/24

In recent weeks, Estonia, Poland, and Romania have reported breaches of their airspace by Russian aircraft. Just this week, Norway revealed that Russian aircraft have violated its airspace three times this year after more than a decade without such intrusions. Last week, three Russian fighter jets reportedly violated Estonian airspace for 12 minutes, flying miles deep into Estonian territory with their transponders off. The most extreme incident was in Poland, where NATO allies shot down four

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00:50:27

Joshua Yaffa explains how Donald Trump got NATO to...

The Naked Pravda ·

2025/07/02

On June 25, NATO leaders agreed at their annual summit on a goal of spending five percent of their gross domestic product on defense, more than doubling the old two-percent target. It’s unclear how many members will actually reach this goal. Even the target relies on some creative accounting: of the five percent, only 3.5 percent is pledged to what officials call “pure” defense spending, with the remainder going to security and defense-related “critical infrastructure.”Ahead of the NATO summit,

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00:53:59

Pulitzer-winner Benjamin Nathans on the Soviet...

The Naked Pravda ·

2025/06/23

Historian Benjamin Nathans joins The Naked Pravda to discuss his new book, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement (Princeton University Press, August 2024). In the post-Stalin USSR, when the regime seemed eternal and there was little tradition of resistance to totalitarianism, citizens who came up against the arbitrary Soviet justice system had to invent their own strategies for effecting change. Nathans looks beyond the familiar stories of figures like

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01:16:16

Everyday politics in Russia with Jeremy Morris

The Naked Pravda ·

2025/05/28

Anthropologist Jeremy Morris joins The Naked Pravda to discuss his latest book, Everyday Politics in Russia: From Resentment to Resistance (Bloomsbury, March 2025). The conversation explores Morris’s extensive fieldwork across urban, regional, and rural Russia to understand how society has responded to the collapse of the USSR, capitalist social Darwinism, and the ongoing war in Ukraine. He shares insights into his ethnographic methods, emphasizing the importance of embedded, long-term relationships

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00:46:36

Jill Dougherty’s Russia

The Naked Pravda ·

2025/04/29

The Naked Pravda interviews journalist and author Jill Dougherty about her new memoir, My Russia: What I Saw Inside the Kremlin, where she recounts her experiences studying and working in Russia. Dougherty talks about early influences, such as discovering the Russian language through an eccentric schoolteacher and later watching the Moon landing from a Leningrad dormitory. She shares insights from her decades-long career at CNN, covering key events from the presidencies of Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris

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00:34:28

The banking scandal that broke Russia’s anti-Kremlin...

The Naked Pravda ·

2024/11/09

Last month, as another 30 days of war passed in Ukraine, Russian activists, economists, and politicians in the exiled anti-Kremlin opposition spent much of their time arguing about a banking scandal from the last decade. The debate has been as mystifying to outsiders as it is confusing to those without an education in finance. With help from Ilya Shumanov, the general director of Transparency International-Russia in exile, The Naked Pravda breaks down the squabbling and criminal stakes at the

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