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Andrei Trofimov: "Try Me for Treason"

Convicted Russian anti-war activist Andrei Trofimov. Photo: Mr. Trofimov’s Vkontakte page, via Mediazona In 2023, Andrey Trofimov, an anti-war activist from Tver, was sentenced to ten years in a maximum security penal colony on several charges [to wit, disseminating “fake news” about the Russian army, calling for “extremism,” and attempting to join the Free Russia Legion]. In his closing…

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Shopsh: Circassian Vocal Tradition of Zhiu

As the sun rises on 21 May, marking the Day of Remembrance for the Circassian Genocide, we invite you to listen beyond the silence that often surrounds the wounds of colonialism. In the following article, Bulat Khalilov, co-founder of Ored Recordings – a label dedicated to traditional and post-traditional music from the North Caucasus – reflects on a paradox within Circassian music today: how a…

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Sunday Reader No. 4: Sounds

Abkhazia is a country (some would argue an occupied region) with which it is impossible to work without ignoring the political context. It is an unrecognized state that in the 90s separated from Georgia, wanting to gain independence. Independence that came at the cost of war, brutality on both sides, historical trauma and nationalist myths. Most of the international community calls those events…

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Victory Day 2025

Sergei Podgorkov, Outside the Obukhov Factory (St. Petersburg), 9 May 2025 Source: Sergei Podgorkov (Facebook), 9 May 2025 On Friday, May ninth, Treptow Park was perhaps the most heavily guarded place in Berlin. Hundreds of police officers kept the peace at Germany’s most famous memorial to Soviet soldiers on the day Russia marked the eightieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War in…

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"The Squadron Did Not Notice the Fallen Fighter"

Silly little fly was burning on a candleBurning the small fry, smoke that is so tenderLittle star has fallen into the puddle by the stepsThe squadron did not notice the fallen fighter The dead one did not live, the sick’s not kicked the bucketThe seer was not blind, the sleeper is still tucked inMerry beating brave hearts (in Morse code would tell)The squadron did not notice the fallen…

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Clubbing

In the wee hours of Sunday, 4 May, Russian security forces raided concerts in St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, at which, among other things, they asked attendees about their attitude to the war, local media have reported. In Yekaterinburg, law enforcement officers interrupted a concert at the club Syndrome. As the musicians were performing, people in uniform came on stage, halted the concert,…

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Death as the Russian National Idea

Vladimir Putin speaking with a group of Russian war widows. English subtitles by Julia Khazagaeva Death as the national idea. Look at the faces of these women who lost their men in the war against Ukraine. They glow with newfound meaning. “I am a mom of four children and, recently, a widow…. Thank you, Vladimir Vladimirovich,” ”I lost my brother in the SVO [special military operation], but my…

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"A River of Grief": Six More Crimean Tatars Sentenced to Long Prison Terms by Russian Occupation Regime

Today, a Russian military court sentenced six Crimean Tatars from the Dzhankoi District to terms in prison ranging from 11 to 14 years. On the firing range of persecution, this is yet another sentence for Muslims in Crimea. For us, it means yet more broken lives, families separated for many years, and children who have also been sentenced to a life without their fathers. It is a river of…

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Solidarity with Ukraine (and Its Opposite)

Coeleen Kiebert, Ode to the Women of Ukraine, May They Return to Quilt Their Beauty Again Soon, 2021. Ceramic, indigo linen. Pajaro Valley Arts, Watsonville, California, 26 April 2025. Photo by the Russian Reader News from Ukraine Bulletin 144 (28 April 2025) In this week’s bulletin: Solidarity With Ukraine conference speeches, reports and draft declaration/ Mobilise to free abducted…

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Olga Menshikh: "A Society Sick with Fear Cannot Be Happy"

Olga Menshikh. Photo: Alexandra Astakhova/Mediazona A panel of three Moscow City Court judges, chaired by Irina Vasina, upheld the verdict in the criminal case against anesthesia nurse Olga Menshikh on charges of disseminating “fake news” about the Russian army: eight years in prison for two posts on the Russian social media network VKontakte, per Article 207.3.2.e of the Criminal Code. This is…

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Jesus Petrovich Christ and His Forty-Five False Apostles

The 45-year-old resident of the Tatarstan capital with the exotic first name and surname and the patronymic Petrovich has four prior criminal convictions Holy Week has kicked off for a Kazan defendant with a quite uncommon name: Jesus Christ. The 45-year-old Kazan resident has been charged with falsely registering forty-five migrant workers at his address. Jesus Petrovich has prior repeat…

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Well-Being and the War

“We love and miss Berlin so much that we decided not to wait until we find ourselves there again . . .” Samotechnaya Square, Moscow, April 2025. Photo: anatrrra (used with their permission) Despite being hit with unprecedented Western sanctions, the war with Ukraine has been accompanied by a noticeable increase in the well-being of Russians. A new study has revealed the extent of the domestic…

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Sunday Reader No. 3: Languages

Haku, “奥二重で見る”  Source: Haku (YouTube) As a Kyrgyz woman born in the last years of the Soviet Union, I never thought twice about whether my usage of the Russian language was problematic or not — until recently when I reached out to my Ukrainian friend in Russian, and she responded to me in Ukrainian. I have been thinking about the political aspects of language since then. Last week I was…

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Kyle

Three years ago, one man saved my family and me. He knew nothing about us except that I was a journalist, that I had left Russia because of the war, that I had children, and that we had nowhere to go. Kyle and his wife Katie decided to take us in and give us shelter. We finally had a dot on the map where we were welcome. That was how we ended up in the United States, after traveling through five…

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Kirill Medvedev & Oleg Zhuravlev: Russia's (Post)War Future

“A Russia without profanity. The word mom is sacred! Speak without swearing.” Photo: Igor Stomakhin, Moscow, 2025 What can serve as the basis for new Russian post-war identity? What sort of patriotism can there be in a country which has lived through an aggressive war? Of what should the people of this country be proud? What should they associate themselves with? Republic Weekly presents a…

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Sunday Reader No. 2: Outliers

This week’s edition of BBC Radio 4’s obituaries program featured appreciations of the KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky and the composer Sofia Gubaidulina. ||| TRR Oleg Gordievsky, Renee Goddard, Professor Richard Fortey, Sofia Gubaidulina Matthew Bannister on Oleg Gordievsky, the KGB agent who defected to Britain and became a valued source of secret intelligence during the 1970s and 80s. Renee…

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Twenty-Five Years

25 years ago, on March 26, 2000, Vladimir Putin won the Russian presidential election, making him the official successor of Boris Yeltsin, who had resigned three months earlier. Putin, who was prime minister at the time and had served as acting president after Yeltsin’s resignation, won 53.4 percent of the vote in what is widely considered the last truly competitive presidential election…