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Meduza in English — The Real Russia. Today.

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Editorial Articles Media Highlights

January 26 2026

Meduza breaks down the debate over Europe’s new platform for dialogue with Russian anti-war, pro-democracy forces

On January 26, the Council of Europe announced that it had approved the list of participants in its new Platform for Dialogue with Russian Democratic Forces. European lawmakers describe the initiative, which was created to engage anti-war opposition figures, as a way to support democratic change in Russia and contribute to a just peace in Ukraine. But while supporters hope the platform could help defend the interests of anti-war Russians internationally, critics argue it will merely project an image of the Russian opposition convenient to the West without having any real impact. Meduza explains how the platform came about, who will be part of it, and what Russian opposition figures hope it can achieve.

January 26 2026

Caught in America’s winter storm and not used to extreme cold? Meduza has some tips.

A historic winter storm has paralyzed much of the eastern United States, forcing airlines to cancel at least 10,000 flights and prompting more than 20 states to declare emergencies. On Sunday, more than a million homes and businesses lost power, leaving many people unaccustomed to severe cold to face freezing temperatures without indoor heating. For those suddenly confronting harsh winter conditions in parts of the U.S. that rarely see snow, Meduza’s employees — no strangers to the bitter cold — share their top tips for staying toasty.

January 26 2026

Moscow memorial plaque to slain journalist Anna Politkovskaya torn down for fifth time in a week

A memorial plaque to Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist assassinated in 2006 who reported extensively on Russian atrocities in Chechnya, has been torn down five times in the past week. Here’s what we know.

January 23 2026

Russia and Ukraine hold first joint peace talks with United States

Delegations from Russia, Ukraine, and the United States held joint peace talks in Abu Dhabi on Friday, marking the first known trilateral meeting since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022.

January 23 2026

‘They won’t shut up about Greenland’: Meduza obtains the Kremlin’s instructions for state media covering Trump’s standoff with Denmark

Donald Trump’s push for U.S. control of Greenland has triggered a fresh round of instructions from the Kremlin on how Russian state media should frame current events. According to media guidelines obtained by Meduza, state-run and pro-government outlets were told to present the standoff as evidence of a weakening West, a fractured NATO, and an American president borrowing from Vladimir Putin’s playbook. And despite Putin’s public insistence that the Greenland dispute doesn’t concern Russia, the guidelines call for wall-to-wall coverage of the issue. Meduza’s Andrey Pertsev explains how the Kremlin is turning Trump’s Greenland gambit into a propaganda opportunity.

January 23 2026

‘Everyone understands Moscow doesn’t care’: Inside the only uncensored news outlet in Russia’s war-torn border regions

For two weeks now, Russia’s Belgorod region has been grappling with an energy crisis so intense that even Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov has called it “catastrophic.” After a Ukrainian attack on January 8, approximately 600,000 people were left without electricity, and repairs to the power grid are ongoing. Yet in most local media, news of the blackout is buried under reports about minor, unrelated events. The only Belgorod-based outlet offering uncensored coverage of the full-scale war and its consequences in the region is Pepel (“Ash”), a Telegram channel launched in fall 2022 that now has more than 107,000 followers.

January 23 2026

Will Ukraine and Russia join Trump’s new ‘Board of Peace’ alongside Belarus?

U.S. President Donald Trump held a signing ceremony on Thursday for the founding charter of the “Board of Peace,” a new international body intended to help resolve global conflicts. Meduza explains what we know about the new initiative and what Ukraine and Russia have said about whether they will join it.

January 23 2026

Russia may be forced to give up its base in northern Syria. What does that mean for Moscow?

Russia’s military presence in Syria may be facing another drawdown. Days after bringing Kurdish-held territory under government control, Damascus is reportedly preparing to ask Russian forces to withdraw from the Qamishli airfield there. To understand what role the Qamishli airfield has played in Russia’s Syria policy — and why that role may now be exhausted — we spoke with an expert from Meduza’s Razbor (“Explainers”) team.

January 22 2026

Zelensky announces trilateral Ukraine, U.S., Russia talks in UAE

A trilateral meeting involving U.S., Ukrainian, and Russian delegations will be held in the United Arab Emirates, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said while answering questions after his appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday.

January 22 2026

Flower Power against the Kremlin. We all need somebody to lean on. Meduza’s readers in Russia are calling on you.

Dear readers,

January 22 2026

Russia’s schools are introducing a grade for behavior — obedience and ideological conformity included

Beginning in 2026, Russian schoolchildren will be graded not only on their academic performance but also on their behavior. Officials say the new system is meant to reinforce discipline. But in conversations with the outlet Takie Dela, education experts warn that it revives a Soviet-era tool of control — one that could punish dissent, enforce ideological conformity, and make obedience a formal requirement of education. Meduza shares a summary of Takie Dela’s reporting.

January 22 2026

Russia is filling its ranks with foreign fighters and treating them as ‘disposable soldiers’

Russia’s enlistment numbers have begun to fall after four years of waging all-out war against Ukraine. Meanwhile, the Kremlin’s recruitment drives abroad seem to be ramping up — or at least attracting more attention. In early January, viral videos that appeared to show Russian officers mistreating African recruits prompted renewed warnings from Ukrainian officials that Vladimir Putin’s military views foreign fighters as “disposable.” However, promises of high salaries and fast-track citizenship continue to lure thousands of young men, particularly from low-income countries, into the Russian army’s ranks and its grinding assault on Ukraine. For more insight into Russia’s global recruitment strategy and the realities foreign fighters face, Meduza deputy editor Eilish Hart spoke with Karen Philippa Larsen, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), who is tracking this issue.

January 21 2026

The war on Cheburashka: How Russia’s box office smash ignited a conservative revolt

Russia’s domestic box office has a rare smash hit. “Cheburashka 2,” this year’s sequel to the 2023 live-action film adapting Soviet writer Eduard Uspensky’s beloved “animal unknown to science” (as the creature is famously described), has already generated more than five billion rubles ($65.1 million) in ticket sales. The movie is on track to outperform its predecessor, which earned a record 7.1 billion rubles ($92.4 million) during its theatrical run. Despite strong commercial success, the production has provoked outrage from some conservatives. The prominent “Eurasianist” right-wing philosopher Alexander Dugin has led the backlash, and several State Duma deputies now echo his criticisms. Meduza examines the reasons for the controversy.

January 21 2026

‘The guards didn’t like people cooking frogs’: A Russian woman tells Meduza about the year and a half she spent in U.S. immigration jail

From October 2024 to September 2025, Russians received a record number of asylum denials in the United States, and on January 14, 2026, the Trump administration suspended the issuance of immigrant visas to Russians altogether. Under President Donald Trump, the process of crossing the U.S.–Mexico border became significantly more difficult. People have waited for months for permission to enter U.S. territory before spending long periods in immigration detention facilities — sometimes more than a year. One of those people is 30-year-old Russian national Polina Guseva. Before receiving political asylum and reaching Los Angeles, she spent a year and a half in two U.S. detention centers. Meduza spoke with her about what life was like in jail, how she managed to win her court cases, and how she started a handwritten Russian-language newspaper for inmates called Vestnik Yebatoria (roughly “The Fuckatorium Herald) in one of the detention centers.

January 21 2026

Meduza’s sources say Dmitry Medvedev is tired of being a ‘troll’ and wants back in Russia’s political spotlight

For several years, Dmitry Medvedev’s public presence has been shaped less by his official duties than by his incendiary posts on social media. Now, sources tell Meduza that Russia’s onetime reformist president turned pro-war hawk wants to return to center stage by taking the top spot on United Russia’s federal ticket in the 2026 State Duma elections. Meduza special correspondent Andrey Pertsev spoke with Kremlin insiders to find out what — and who — could stand in the way of Medvedev’s comeback.

January 21 2026

Around 600,000 people leave Kyiv as Russian strikes cut power and heat

Since the start of January, around 600,000 people have left Kyiv amid power and heating outages caused by Russian attacks, Mayor Vitali Klitschko told The Times.

January 16 2026

Senior Russian nuclear official arrested on charges of financing Ukrainian military

Russian authorities have arrested a senior Rosatom executive on charges of financing the Ukrainian military. On Friday, federal agents detained Mikhail Shcherbak, the director of capital construction at Atomstroyexport, which manages Rosatom’s nuclear engineering division. Shcherbak has worked in the Russian nuclear construction sector for nearly two decades, participating in projects in Belarus and Iran, according to the independent outlet Agentstvo.

January 16 2026

Chechen ruler Ramzan Kadyrov’s 18-year-old son reportedly in critical condition after Grozny car crash

Adam Kadyrov, the 18-year-old son of the head of Chechnya, has been hospitalized in critical condition following a traffic collision in Grozny, the Chechen opposition Telegram channel Niyso and RFE/RL journalists reported on January 16. Niyso reported that Adam is unconscious, undergoing resuscitation, and being prepared for emergency transport to Moscow.

January 16 2026

As fighting continues in Pokrovsk and Kupyansk, Russia bears down on Ukraine’s main remaining Donbas strongholds. Meduza analyses the latest from the front.

Like our earlier reports on the combat situation in Ukraine, this article reviews recent battlefield developments based on open-source information. Meduza has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from the outset, and our military analyses reflect our commitment to objective reporting on a war we firmly oppose.

January 16 2026

A Russian diplomat who died in Cyprus last week was reportedly an undercover intelligence officer

The last two weeks have brought not one but two mysteries surrounding Russian men in Cyprus. The first involved Vladislav Baumgertner, the former CEO of a major potash producer, who went missing after leaving for a rock climbing trip on January 7. Then, a day later, diplomat Anton Panov died in a reported suicide in the Russian Embassy in Nicosia. According to subsequent media reports, he was working for Russian intelligence. It’s unclear whether the incidents are connected — or if they have to do with a separate ongoing Cypriot political scandal. Here’s what we know.

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