russianreader

[russianreader]

"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…

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Are These the Bad Old Days?

Source: Ekaterina Reznikova and Alexey Korostelev, “2024: A study into repression under Putin,” Proekt, 22 February 2024 Russia jails dissident once targeted by Putin at KGB for 16 years A court in St. Petersburg has sentenced Alexander Skobov, a 66-year-old Soviet dissident and activist, to 16 years in jail on charges of justifying terrorism and joining a terrorist group. Skovov was first…

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Sunday Reader No. 1

Hand Pulled Noodles: How To Make Classic Uyghur Laghman From Scratch | Beef Edition Laghman noodle recipe: all purpose flour 250 gr • two pinches of salt • water 110ml Laghman sauce: beef 237 gr • sunflower/corn oil 110ml • onion 1x • long green paprika 3x • sweet red paprika 1/2 • tomato 2x, 218 gr • ginger powder 1/2 tsp • ground Szichuan pepper 1 tsp • salt 1tsp • soy sauce 1tbsp • water…

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Alexander Skobov: "We Are Witnessing a Disgusting Attempt at a Purely Imperialist Collusion Between Two Predators"

Alexander Skobov. Photo: Mediazona Today, the 1st Western District Military Court sentenced 67-year-old dissident Alexander Skobov to 16 years in prison and fined him 300,000 rubles (just over $3,500). Skobov, who first faced criminal prosecution in the USSR, was convicted under charges of “participation in the activities of a terrorist community” (for his involvement with the Free Russia…

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Alexander Skobov: What It Means to Be Anti-War and Anti-Fascist

The complete text of Alexander Skobov’s speech during closing arguments at his trial today (18 March 2025). Video: SOTAvision Those who have been following my trial will certainly have noticed that the position of my lawyers and my position are not quite the same. We have emphasized different things, and we have slightly different objectives. My lawyers have sought to draw attention to a problem…

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El lector ruso: Los que se van vs. los que se quedan

anatrrra, en Arbat, diciembre del 2024 Kirill Medvedev*, poeta, editor e integrante de la banda Arkady Kots, dejó Rusia en 2023 y retornó hacia el final del 2024. A pedido de la “Republic Weekly”, él nos explica su sinuoso andar, como luce Moscú después de una ausencia prolongada y que tienen que decir los que se quedaron acerca de los que se van. Tras un año y medio viviendo en el extranjero…

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Alexandra: A Russian Trans Woman in Trump's America

Alexandra in Times Square. Personal photo courtesy of Republic Alexandra left Russia four years ago, fleeing oppression, propaganda, and ever harsher anti-LGBT laws. She applied for political asylum in the U.S., made a home in New York, and felt safe for the first time. But with Donald Trump’s return to power, her fears have returned. The new rules and laws, the rhetoric, and the swaying of…

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Kharkiv blogger Anna Gin on the maternal instinct and feminine solidarity amid war and international fascism.