• Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil refineries will continue

    Although the US has put pressure on Ukraine to stop attacking oil refineries in Russia, Ukraine will continue to attack Russian oil

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  • Russia bets it can outlast the attention span of the West to defeat Ukraine

    Russian President Vladimir Putin is betting that the war in Ukraine will drag on for years and that Russia can outlast the attention

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  • Who was Prigozhin counting on to back his failed mutiny?

    During his march on Moscow, Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin was counting on solidarity from senior army officers. Considering the fact he came close to reaching the capital without encountering any particular resistance, he might not have been completely mistaken.
    by Mikhail Komin

  • At least 47.000 Russian soldiers killed according to Russian media investigation

    https://raamoprusland.nl/dossiers/defensie/2407-at-least-47-000-russian-soldiers-killed-according-to-russian-media-investigation.
    by Meduza and Mediazona

  • Not Germany or France but US main obstacle for Ukraine’s access to NATO

    Fifteen years ago Germany and France refused Ukraine membership of NATO. Now the USA are the main obstacle. On the eve of the NATO-summit in Vilnius (11-12 July) the stakes are high. Ukraine will not accept promises about ‘deepening the partnership’ but will ask for a clear invitation.
    by Sergiy Sydorenko

  • UN: torture of Ukrainians by Russian armed forces systematic

    The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Alice Jill Edwards, has send a letter to the Russian Federation, expressing concerns about the widespread and systematic use of psychological and physical torture of Ukrainians by the Russian army.
    by Alice Jill Edwards

  • Russian media downplay Kakhovka dam breach

    The Kremlin hasn’t issued any direct instructions for how the Kakhovka dam breach should be covered. As a result, virtually all pro-Kremlin outlets have chosen to downplay the significance of the disaster as well as the scale of the flooding.
    by Andrey Pertsev

  • ‘The war was a mistake, but losing it is unacceptable’

    Even among their readers, there are people who continue to make excuses for the invasion. Meduza decided to hear what these people had to say: they asked them to explain why they support Russia waging war on Ukraine.
    by Meduza

  • Sanctions drove oligarkhs home to embrace Putin

    Ownership of property has brought serfdom rather than freedom to the super-rich Russians: they thought they were part of the global jet set. Driven back to Russia because of the sanctions they now form the backbone of Putin's war economy. Is this wise or is division of the oligarkhs a better solution?
    by Vladislav Inozemtsev

  • Russian threat looms over Moldova

    Although Moldova is not directly involved in Russia's war in Ukraine, the war has tremendous influence on the country's position. Moldovan national security faces three significant threats.
    by Denis Cenusa

  • One night in Bakhmut: waiting for the end

    Few inhabitants remain in the city of Bakhmut in Eastern Ukraine. Some are waiting for the Russians to arrive. Others are staying to help others, or because they have nowhere else to go.
    by Francis Farrell

  • Wagner group cemeteries growing across Russia

    Yekaterina Barkalova visited the village Bakinskaya in southwestern Russia, and saw how more than 300 fighters from the notorious Wagner mercenary company were buried in Bakinskaya since Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine
    by Yekaterina Barkalova

  • Dismissals of corrupt officials to reassure Ukrainians and the West

    The wave of dismissals of high placed Ukrainian officials show that pressure from the West and from civil society grows.
    by Jakub Ber

  • 'Mr Putin, stop this madness immediately!'

    Ilya Yashin is the first opposition politician in Russia to be imprisoned for speaking the truth about Russian atrocities against civilians in Bucha. He was sentenced to eight and a hlaf year imprisonment. In his last word he called upon his supporters to be courageous.
    by Ilya Yashin

  • Will the death of a chief diplomat change anything in Belarus?

    Even before the Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei’s sudden death, it was hard to see how Minsk could ever return to its multi-vector foreign policy as long as Lukashenko remains in power.
    by Artyom Shraibman

  • What does Russia's martial law entail?

    On October 19, Russian president Vladimir Putin signed a ...

  • End of the war no longer science fiction

    The failure of the Russian armed forces in the Kharkiv region is likely to have far-reaching consequences for the outcome of the war. We entered the third phase of the war, where Kyiv has the initiative. It is no longer science fiction to think that the war will end in a matter of weeks or months.
    by Konrad Muzyka

  • Mobilization causes exodus at Russia's borders

    The 'partial' mobilization that Russian president Putin announced on September 21 has caused an exodus of Russian men and women. Seven months in, Putin's address makes the war seep further into Russian society. The announcement was met with protests in several Russian cities, as well as long lines at many border crossings.
    by Mike Eckel

  • Some legal advice to escape mobilisation

    On 21 September Vladimir Putin declared a 'partly mobilisation' for 300.000 Russian men. In reality the numbers could be much higher.At last the war has come home to the Russians. During mobilization, escaping the draft is a legal problem for many Russians. Meduza spoke with a military attorney from the Russian Human Rights Defenders’ Coalition on how to defend yourselve if you don't want to fight.

  • Putin cannot sell defeat to his country

    How to read Russian society's response to the war? According to sociologist Greg Yudin there are three distinct groups in Russia: 'radicals, dissenters and laymen'. Yudin believes Putin will not be able to sell a defeat in Ukraine as a victory. But a full military mobilization seems equally unlikely now.
    by Greg Yudin

  • Rob Lee: 'Huge breakthrough Kherson unlikely'

    Journalist Lilia Yapparova interviewed military analyst Rob Lee on Meduza about Ukraine’s push to liberate the Kherson region from Russian occupation. 'Will they be able to take back all of Kherson? I don't know. But I think they will be able to at least take back some towns and have some success.'
    by Lilia Yapparova

  • Introduced: every Monday patriotic education in Russian schools

    With the new school year that opened on September 1, the Russian Education Ministry is launching  weekly lessons first thing every Monday with the title Important Conversations. What are teachers supposed to do?
    by Yevgenya Kotlyar and Robert Coalson

  • Visaban for Russians: separate goats from sheep

    Most Russians are adamant about a visaban for citizens of Russia. It would make Russians collectively responsible for the atrocities of their government and make it impossible for critics of the war to leave the country. The Ukrainian political analyst Mykola Riabchuk sees a sim-ple solution: crossing borders is no human right, so prohibit entrance to state functionaries and ask visa applicants openly if they support Putin's war. 
    by Mykola Riabchuk

  • Kremlin struggles with 'referenda' in occupied Ukrainian land

    Once again the Kremlin has miscalculated in the war against Ukraine. The Russians were confident that they would conquer the whole of Donbass this summer and organise 'referenda' in the southern cities of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. But the offensive has grinded to a halt. Russia might have to postpone the annexation once again.
    by Andrey Pertsev

  • Russian army starts lacking soldiers

    The Russian armed forces are suffering huge losses in Ukraine. The exact numbers are not verifiable. But the consequences for the Kremlin are rather serious. The Russian leadership is now facing further fragmentation of the ground forces. Pavel Luzin analyses the options and threats of Russian troops coming home from the war scene.
    by Pavel Luzin

  • Collective Responsibility and the Slide into the Totalitarian Past

    Even before the crack down by the Kremlin, the anti-war movement in Russia was representing only a tiny minority of the Russian citizens. But does that imply that the Russian population as a whole is guilty of Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine?
    by Sergey Radchenko

  • Russia's military grows afraid of the long war

    Voices within the Russian military community are beginning to express anxiety about the future course of the war against Ukraine. Military losses are staggering, the Ukrainians are a serious adversary and the population wants an end to the 'special military operation'. Russian military experts fear a backlash in Russia.
    by Kseniya Kirillova

  • First grain ship left Ukraine but agreements have limited succes

    For the first time since the Russian invasion, a ship carrying grain was able to leave the port of Odesa on August 1. A day after the agreement was signed, however, Odesa was hit by a Russian missile strike. And a week later, Ukrainian agricultural tycoon Oleksiy Vadatursky was killed when a Russian missile destroyed his house. 
    by Adam Michalski a.o.

  • 'The Russians have come to annihilate us as a nation'

    Ukrainian writer Volodymyr Rafeyenko (Donetsk, 1969) used to write in his native Russian. Since the war he stopped doing so. Marci Shore, associate professor of intellectual history at Yale University corresponded with Rafeyenko this spring about the war, about truth and evil, and about the changing status of the Russian language in Ukraine.
    by Marci Shore

  • Why still polling in wartime Russia?

    Are opinion polls still useful at all-in a dictatorship or during wartime? The answers differ from fully confidence in this kind of

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  • How the West misunderstood the criminals in the Kremlin

    Several months into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the global discussion about the war has divided into two opposing

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  • Severodonetsk in ruins: 'We now have our own Mariupol'

    Severodonetsk is at the heart of the battle for the Donbas. Ukraine’s troops are trying to hold the line, but Russian forces are

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  • Why Russia needs to be humiliated in Ukraine

    The West should take care not to humiliate Russia, since it suffered after the collaps of communism, communis opinio says. The

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  • An old Soviet tradition makes a comeback: the denunciation

    A St. Petersburg teacher had to quit after a student informed on her. Social scientist Maria

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  • Family ties break under the pressure of Russian propaganda

    The millions of families separated by the Russia-Ukraine border now find themselves on opposite sides of a war. The Russian

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  • Pain, fear, shame – this is what I feel today

    Novaja Gazeta, one of the few remaining opposition voices in Russia, published this statement by the Russian writer

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  • Sociologist Greg Yudin: 'We are living in a new era'

    During an antiwar protest in Moscow sociologist Greg Yudin was arrested and beaten up by the police. He

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  • Domestic obstacles for a Russian-Ukrainian truce

    There is intense public debate in the West about ending the war against Ukraine with peace negotiations or a truce.

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