All Episodes
The Naked Pravda — 189 episodes
Lucian Kim explains how a generational clash over Soviet nostalgia enabled Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
Unpacking the economics behind Russia’s military recruitment machine, with researcher Janis Kluge
Russia has crushed open defiance in occupied Ukraine. Scholar Jade McGlynn explains how the resistance went underground to survive.
What happens when you drunk-text the FBI about Russian spies and prostitutes at 4 a.m.? The curious case of Nomma Zarubina.
EHistorian William Jay Risch looks back at Euromaidan and Ukraine’s road from ‘revolutionary euphoria to the madness of war’
Is Trump’s Venezuela operation a ‘gift to Putin,’ and what is the state of Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’?
Moscow Times opinion editor Charlie Hancock discusses the challenges of commissioning commentary on Russia amid the war in Ukraine
Pavel Durov’s Russian biographer explains the tech-bro feudalism that drives Telegram
Simon Shuster on the fall of Andriy Yermak
Andrei Sannikov on Lukashenko’s latest gambit — and why the West keeps taking the bait
Russia’s elites once dreaded war. Now, they fear peace.
Elena Kostyuchenko explains why E.U. multiple-entry visas were so crucial for Russian dissidents and journalists
Julia Ioffe’s ‘Motherland’
Four scenarios for the next chapter in Russia’s war against Ukraine
Here’s what you do when Russia won’t stay out of your airspace
Joshua Yaffa explains how Donald Trump got NATO to pay up
Pulitzer-winner Benjamin Nathans on the Soviet dissident movement’s ‘many lives’
Everyday politics in Russia with Jeremy Morris
Jill Dougherty’s Russia
The banking scandal that broke Russia’s anti-Kremlin opposition
Moldova’s knife-edge election and E.U. referendum
How Russian propaganda and ordinary Americans build ‘bespoke realities’
North Korea's role in the Ukraine War
Breaking down Russia's 2025 war budget
The North Caucasian clan warfare behind a deadly dispute at Wildberries, ‘Russia’s Amazon’
America's expanding crackdown on RT and Moscow's covert influence operations
EIranian ballistic missiles have entered the Ukraine War chat
The science of Russian Internet censorship and surveillance
Russian conscripts and Ukraine's Kursk offensive
The long-term economic effects of Russia’s war in Ukraine
How can Ukraine hold the line against Russia?
Kazakhstan's landmark murder trial
‘The American faith’: Why Russia targets evangelicals in Ukraine
Corruption and co-optation in Russia’s autocracy
How Russian disinformation really threatens the USA
Returning to the talks that could have ended the war in Ukraine
How Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov dies
Migration and discrimination in Putin’s Russia
The evolution of the Russian FSB
Daniel Roher and Julia Ioffe remember the Navalnys
EHow terrorism’s geopolitics brought tragedy to Moscow
Is Europe preparing for a wider Russian invasion?
Politico’s Alex Ward on Biden’s Russia and Ukraine policy
The Russian space nukes scare
Christopher Miller on how war came to Ukraine
The death of Alexey Navalny
Yandex’s restructuring and the future of Kremlin tech control
How Russia targets its critics abroad in wartime
How doomed presidential candidate Boris Nadezhdin rallied antiwar Russians
Why hasn’t the West seized Russia’s frozen sovereign assets?
The evolution of Russia’s combat recruitment
Memories of Russia
Growing up German in Soviet Kazakhstan, with Lena Wolf
How studying Russia became a paradox
Russia’s ban on the ‘LGBT movement’
Spotlight on Georgia
How Russian comedians find the humor in exile
EHow the USSR tried to run the world
Why is anti-Semitic violence spreading in Russia’s North Caucasus?
The Russian military’s ‘torture pits’
Russian music at war
How Russia pressures Central Asian migrants into military service
‘Economic War: Ukraine and the Global Conflict Between Russia and the West’
Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh
What’s behind Putin’s recent spate of anti-Semitic statements?
The Pegasus spyware attack on Meduza
ERussian elections after an eternity under Putin
Jade McGlynn’s ‘Russia’s War’
The Kremlin’s new history textbook
‘Goodbye, Eastern Europe’ with Jacob Mikanowski
Why Alexey Navalny matters
Loyalty and competence in Russia's armed forces
The new era of Russian business politics
Counting Russia’s 47,000 killed combatants
The danger at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant
An obituary for Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group
Deteriorating trans rights in Russia
Russia’s troubled ‘green future’
Putin's private life and off-the-books family
Pegasus spyware in the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict
The Russian Internet at war
Russian prisons today
Ukraine’s fight inside Russia, behind enemy lines
How the Putin regime uses the memory of WWII
What human rights activism is still possible in Russia?
Russia's history of terrorism
Rostec’s PR war on Telegram
The Russian military’s growing discipline problems
EImaginary wives, seized children, Wagner Group's Pornhub campaign
ERussian youth culture and subcultures
The Russian Volunteer Corps and its neo-Nazi leader
What the hell is Russia’s Wagner Group?
Russian influence in Hungary
Russia’s wartime emigration sparks a ‘reckoning’ in Central Asia
War reporting in Ukraine with The Washington Post’s Kyiv bureau
‘Hybrid Warriors: Proxies, Freelancers, and Moscow’s Struggle for Ukraine’
Beyond TV and polling in Russia
Problems with the West’s talk about Ukraine’s ‘decolonization’
Studying Russia from afar
The fight for the future of the Russian language
Who the hell is Evgeny Prigozhin?
An idiot’s guide to the current state of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
What if Russian commercial aviation cuts too many safety corners?
What if Russia uses a dirty bomb in Ukraine?
Would Russians be able to rationalize the war against Ukraine without gendered rhetoric?
Will U.S. partisan politics undermine American support for Ukraine?
If China invades Taiwan, what happens to the war in Ukraine?
What if Russia uses nuclear weapons?
What if Vladimir Putin dies tomorrow?
Season three trailer
Kadri Liik explains ‘Putin’s archaic war’ and the Russia we lost
Russian film and television before and since the invasion of Ukraine
How sanctions against Russia reshape the world
Genocide in Ukraine
Resist and rebuild: Civilian life in wartime Ukraine
The Russian North Caucasus during the Ukraine War
Independent journalism in Russia after the fall of the free press
A Russian journalist in Ukraine’s besieged city of Chernihiv
Telegram and the future of Russian Internet freedom
Russia’s looming financial collapse — a return to the 1990s or 1918?
Putin vs. Ukrainian history
Thirty years of U.S. ambassadors in Moscow
The contemporary cultures of Eastern Europe’s breakaway states
Everyday life under Kremlin brinkmanship
Russia's peacekeeping mission in Kazakhstan and security demands in Europe
The best English-language journalism and scholarly work on Russia in 2021
Human rights law in Russia
Russia’s ASAT missile test
Russian gas in Europe
The arrest of Russian cybersecurity titan Ilya Sachkov
The clash over Moscow’s electronic voting
Returned to Chechnya and paraded on TV: Khalimat Taramova’s story
A Russian ad agency’s war on the Pfizer vaccine
What’s treason in Ukraine today? The case against Viktor Medvedchuk
‘Foreign agents’ in Russia and the United States
Spies, student journalists, and life behind bars: A blowup in Moscow’s relations with Prague, the felony case against ‘Doxa,’ and conditions in Russian prisons
‘Sweeping new authority’: What it means to sanction Russia’s sovereign debt
The quiet game: How scientists in Siberia tried to conceal pollution research
Transnational Repression 101: How Russia goes after its citizens abroad
Putin the Killer: What Joe Biden’s pronouncement means in U.S.-Russian diplomatic history
Russia’s failed Twitter throttle
Xenophobes and xenomorphs: A look back at Cold War science fiction
Under pressure: The evolving Belarusian opposition movement versus Lukashenko’s embattled regime
Arms control treaties aren’t for friends: The difficult diplomacy of today’s U.S.-Russian negotiations
Fighting the ‘crooks and thieves’: Alexey Navalny’s anti-corruption politics
Putin’s people: Money in the bank and a palace by the sea
How Russia is ruled: Debt and vertical control across towns and industries
Revisiting the poisoning of Vladimir Kara-Murza
Follow the money: What monetary policy and banking say about Russian politics
Maia Sandu’s win and what it means for Moldova
Is it Putin or is it Russia? The causes of today’s bad vibes between Moscow and the West.
The Nagorno-Karabakh truce: What to expect in the years that follow a bloody six-week war
Keeping Up With Kyrgyzstan
From Russia With Junk: Why the U.S. Trashed the Ventilators Shipped From Moscow
The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict
Stephen Cohen’s legacy
Belarusian propaganda: From courting the West to taking Russia’s cues
Finding the poison: Dr. Marc-Michael Blum explains the analytical chemistry needed to identify nerve agents in patients
For Russian eyes only: U.S. voter data, hackers, and the story that wasn’t
Russia’s coronavirus vaccine: Assessing the risks and research behind ‘Sputnik V’
Poisoned in Russia: Alexey Navalny fights for his life as a deadly trend catches up to the country’s top oppositionist
The Belarusian Election: Three experts explain what to expect from the presidential vote and the real political battle that follows
The Sino-Russian Propaganda Pact: How Moscow and Beijing bungled a media partnership meant to promote each other
The FSO on the QT: The state of sociological work and opinion polling in Russia today
Treason and Military Journalism in Russia: The arrest and prosecution of Ivan Safronov
The Seventh Studio Case: What Kirill Serebrennikov means to Russia’s art world
‘Secondary Infektion’: Ben Nimmo explains how his investigative team helped to uncover a long-running Russian disinformation operation
Nationalism and the Alt-Right: Another look at ‘Russian Lives Matter’
Russian Lives Matter: How America’s new civil rights movement reverberates in Russia
Moral calculus under Putin: Joshua Yaffa talks about his new book, ‘Between Two Fires’
It’s business time: Max Seddon dissects the controversy at ‘Vedomosti’ and reviews the nature of financial reporting in Russia today
F**k the Pulitzer: A Russian investigative journalist says his team deserves recognition for breaking one of the stories that won ‘The New York Times’ its latest reporting award
‘Red Dawn’: What Hollywood’s most outlandish Cold War movie says about Americans and Russians
Pandemic Justice: How COVID-19 and coronavirus containment measures have exacerbated problems in Russia’s courts and prisons
‘Russian Journalism’s Newspeak’: How the Kremlin’s euphemisms creep into reporting about disasters
‘The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad New Boss’: Editorial changes at ‘Vedomosti’ jeopardize one of Russia’s best-respected business newspapers
‘Queer Science Fiction in Russian’: What space epics and tech dystopias tell us about post-Soviet minority activism
‘Russia’s Chances Against Coronavirus’: Sizing up the country’s healthcare capacity and social readiness for a pandemic
‘Constitutional Gymnastics’: Russia’s strange initiative to keep Vladimir Putin in office for years to come
‘Russians in America’: Russian immigrants and visitors in the U.S. discuss the 2020 Democratic primaries
‘Starting WWII’: Today’s war of words between Russia and Poland over the history of the late 1930s
‘Academic Freedom’: The fight over political activism inside Moscow’s Higher School of Economics
‘RuNet Sovereignty’: How Russia is trying to isolate its Internet segment from the rest of the world, maybe
‘Conspiracy theories’: What Americans and Russians reveal about themselves in the stories they tell about each other
‘Executive power in Russia’: How we know what we know about Kremlin politics and what to expect from Putin’s new Constitutional shakeup
‘Tabloids and an inferiority complex’: The business and political strategy behind the media’s biased Russia coverage
‘The Information Nation’: Kremlin researchers and forensic journalists intersect at Russia’s black market for leaked personal data
‘Instead of her face, I saw a pizza’: How women in Russia are fighting back against sexual assault
‘The Naked Pravda’ premiere trailer: Meduza’s new English-language podcast