Very amusing essay about American podcasting from Brace Belden. I'm hardly a heavyweight in the field, but I've bumbled along as Russia Guy / Naked Pravda plankton for many a year, and this article cuts deep. thebaffler.com/outbursts/th...

no one expects the Spanish Inquisition

For today's newsletter, I summarized a recent interview with Zhanna Nemtsova, who has been lobbying to open pathways for the hundreds of thousands of *non*-sanctioned private individuals whose $14 billion is tied up in Europe's frozen Russian assets. meduza.io/en/brief/202...

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Today, we learned that a Ukrainian BMP missed its shot at Yury Trutnev. meduza.io/en/feature/2...

Trailer here. Looks amazing, both for its content and filmmaking. youtu.be/dcUeDa8FK_8...

all smiles today at the White House for Viktor Orban's visit

oof, if the EU doesn't reach an agreement on don't-call-it-seizing Russia's frozen assets, but still goes ahead with a €140-billion loan to Ukraine, members would need to make interest payments of up to €5.6 billion a year, with France carrying about 18% of that load. www.ft.com/content/380c...

keep pushing the envelope, Washington Post. U.S. dominance dies in darkness!

Why Germany Is Still Divided When It Comes to Russia: Many East Germans are more sympathetic toward Moscow than their western compatriots, reflecting decades of Soviet ties and disillusionment since reunification. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/w...

lol, whut

Trump is asked about giving Hungary an exemption on Russian oil sanctions: "We're looking at it, because it's very difficult for him to get the oil and gas from other areas. As you know, they don't have, they don't have the advantage of having sea." www.reuters.com/world/us/don...

Running the numbers on a trillionaire's meager living standards.

The Bolshevik Revolution was exactly 108 years ago today.

For today's Meduza newsletter, I went off the rails a bit and summarized a fascinating livestream today hosted by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists about Kathryn Bigelow’s new film about an unidentified adversary launching a single nuclear missile at Chicago. meduza.io/en/brief/202...

For today's Meduza newsletter, I went off the rails a bit and summarized a fascinating livestream today hosted by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists about Kathryn Bigelow’s new film about an unidentified adversary launching a single nuclear missile at Chicago. meduza.io/en/brief/202...

(⁠╯⁠°⁠□⁠°⁠）⁠╯⁠︵⁠ ⁠┻⁠━⁠┻

I firmly believe that Idris Elba's U.S. president character would have made up his mind more easily in A House of Dynamite if he hadn't just played the British prime minister in Heads of State. That's just too much responsibility for one man.

As always, selective enforcement will shape the contours of this political terror, but the FSB's capacity to arrest people within hours of "illegal Internet searches" is, quite frankly, breathtaking. meduza.io/en/feature/2...

By denying an OFAC license, the U.S. Treasury has successfully killed Gunvor's acquisition of Lukoil's overseas assets. Gunvor denies being "the Kremlin's puppet," as the Trump administration claims, but confirms that it's retracted his purchase offer. www.kommersant.ru/doc/8181711

my kind of people!

has anyone broken the news to Torbjörn Törnqvist?

Ukraine jails Russian soldier for life for executing prisoner of war, @fabricedeprez.bsky.social reports for FT. “The judgment carries significant symbolic weight as Kyiv says hundreds of its troops have been killed in similar fashion.” www.ft.com/content/0ae0...

In RFK Jr.’s defense, he left immediately because he's aware that he's of no use to someone in need of medical care.

RFK Jr. could sense the harmful aura coming off this guy

A cool logo that understandably triggers Russia/Ukraine-brained people. Decades from now, we'll look back and wonder why the hippest, zigzaggiest letter of the alphabet was surrendered to the Putinistas.

The single busiest travel day of the year in the USA, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, is 24 days from now. Air travel in the United States had already become nightmarishly worse in recent memory. The revolution will not be gate-checked.

This will break a lot of hawks' hearts, particularly among Americans who have never had to apply for a "multi-entry visa" in their lives: France’s embassy in Moscow tells RBC that there are no plans to stop issuing multiple-entry Schengen visas to Russians, despite an EU crackdown effort.

Donetsk journalist Dmitry Durnev has a new book chronicling Russia’s invasion of the Donbas. In an interview with Meduza (I summarized it), he recalled his own history in local newspapers & what it was like to watch his hometown fall to violent thugs & Russian propaganda. meduza.io/en/brief/202...

A new report by 7x7 finds that Russia’s border regions of Belgorod & Kursk have become sites of the same violence & looting that made the invasion of Ukraine infamous from the start. Freeing & arming criminals in a lawless war zone is unsurprisingly a recipe for disaster. meduza.io/en/feature/2...

This latest story from Sam Kriss is a wild ride. Using the USSR's Nazino tragedy (aka Cannibal Island) as your setup to open a report from Burning Man is a bold move. Heckuva read. samkriss.substack.com/p/numb-at-bu...

The EU is preparing to further tighten visa rules for Russian citizens, effectively ending the issuance of multi-entry Schengen permits in most cases. But visa issuance remains a national competence, meaning that the European Commission cannot impose a total, sweeping ban on Russian visitors.

Angelina Jolie got the full Ukrainian war experience today, it seems. meduza.io/en/feature/2...

Putin instructs Russia’s Foreign Ministry, Defense Ministry, & intel agencies to submit proposals on the possibility of preparing for nuclear weapons tests. Trump unleashed the genie from the bottle. Especially dumb because Moscow loves reminding the world about its nukes. tass.ru/armiya-i-opk...

Mediazona published an excerpt of a very cool book due out by journalist Andrey Zakharov, all about the data brokers who allowed @christogrozev.bsky.social to track down Navalny's FSB poisoners. Quite the adventure here. I wrote a brief summary of the published excerpt. meduza.io/en/brief/202...

you're full of surprises, Americans

I confess I’m a bit jealous of New Yorkers today. Here in Portland, I only got to vote on whether my taxes should rise slightly to keep the city’s parks from being surrendered to the elements. (But NYC’s weather remains unforgivably inhospitable to humankind.)

A spectacularly dumb op-ed. Even the silly premise of "we stopped playing dirty" ends with the anti-climax that Pearson just wants the UK to adopt European censorship and dick around with American-style cyber stunts. Boooo! www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Following Mishustin’s visit to Beijing, China and Russia issued a joint communiqué declaring that “any unilateral coercive measures taken by any country or group of countries bypassing UN Security Council resolutions are illegal.” Even so, U.S. pressure continues to strain Sino-Russian trade ties.

Another sign the Kremlin is losing faith in Trump: Putin’s spokesman confirmed today that Moscow has stopped sharing maps of the front lines in Ukraine with Washington. How long before Kirill Dmitriev changes his MAGA tune on social media? www.rbc.ru/politics/04/...

Mazda has lost the right to buy back its 50% stake in a car-manufacturing joint venture in Russia after failing to exercise the option. Global carmakers sold their assets to Russian firms for symbolic amounts & options to buy them back w/in several years. Mazda is 1st to lose its buyback rights.

One of the suspected Nord Stream pipeline bombers has declared a hunger strike, claiming that his Italian jailers aren't feeding him adequately. (Unclear what this actually means.) Serhiy Kuznetsov's extradition to Germany is back on, pending a Supreme Court ruling due before December.

Washington makes good on its end of the bargain in the September 2025 political prisoner release, removing Belarus’s state airline Belavia and a Bombardier Challenger 850 jet used by Lukashenko’s family from the U.S. sanctions list. Plus some other Lukashenko-linked suspensions.

In today's Meduza newsletter, I offer you a tease of an episode in the new season of Russia Underground, an excellent podcast from @howardamos.bsky.social and Nina Berezner. meduza.io/en/brief/202...

my son asked me what 1990s tv was like, and for some reason all i could think was: that was when we learned ellens could be gay and ford broncos could vroom vrooom

i keep waiting for people to stop saying "late-stage capitalism" and start saying "post-credits capitalism." but they never do.

WSJ briefly profiles Gunvor CEO Torbjörn Törnqvist, following his "deal of a lifetime" pending purchase of Lukoil's overseas operations. That's quite a statement for someone who "vaulted into the big leagues" by serving a key intermediary for exporting seized Yukos oil. www.wsj.com/business/ene...

Two rather unexpected stories here: (1) a Russian adoption-crazed activist — who paraded that Mariupol teen on TV after he tried to escape home to Ukraine — now faces child-trafficking charges (unclear for what), and (2) Euroclear is cutting out OFAC from some asset unfreezing, making it easier.

Politico report on a controversial embezzlement case against Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, former head of Ukraine’s state-owned national power company Ukrenergo. Critics say it's a politicized prosecution, part of Ze's "lawfare to discredit opponents" and a scheme to scapegoat ex energy execs for blackouts.