A Fundraiser for Yuri Dmitriev’s 70th Birthday Memorial France has launched a fundraiser to help the Russian historian, human rights activist and political prisoner Yuri Dmitriev and his family on his 70th birthday. Memorial has made its appeal in three languages: English, French and Russian.…

The Russian Reader russianreader.substack.com?r=c0lo9&utm_...

Is 19-Year-Old Lyuba Lizunova a Terrorist? 19-year-old Lyuba Lizunova is already serving three and a half years in a Siberian penal colony for her antiwar and antifascist views. Now a Russian court has declared a leader of a "terrorist" organizer, meaning she could face another 20 years in prison…

Stand with Ukraine Through Darkness The Kyiv Independent: "As temperatures in Kyiv plunged to -20°C (-4°F), Russia intensified its attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure, leaving millions in total darkness and biting cold. Though Russia has tried this strategy before, this winter is…

Minnesota Now, the U.S. Then and Now Minnesota resident Erin Maye Quade on what life in her state is like under ICE's terror regime, and UCLA historian Robin Kelley on how events there fit the historical pattern of ultra-violent "policing" in the U.S.

Persons of No Interest If you were a Soviet man in the mid-1970s would you start block-lettering (rather than writing in cursive) in a moment of extreme duress? Would you go to a "beer bar" called "The Shot Glass"? Wouldn't you go to a ryumochnaya (shot bar) instead? And wouldn't you be surprised…

(Anti)Fascism Tuesday As ICE continues its relentless war on Minnesotans, who continue to stand up for each other, Jonathan Last asks how many self-identified U.S. Republicans consciously support the Trump regime's fascist race war, and Congresswoman Robin Kelly (D-Illinois) files articles of…

(Anti)Fascism Today Descriptions of current and historical (anti)fascisms by Minneapolis legal observer Brandon Siguenza, News from Ukraine Bulletin, Heather Cox Richardson, and the U.S. War Department.

Comply or Die “Comply or die” has always been my country’s operative motto, especially when “compliance” has been a priori impossible.

Alexander Krichevsky of Izhevsk: Six Years in Prison for a Comment By all rights, Russian Reader No. 2765 should be about yesterday's events — the Trump regime's vicious murder of an innocent woman in my home state of Minnesota. Instead, it's about a little-known Russian antiwar protester,…

Timofey Anufriev Dies Fighting for Ukraine Timofey Anufriev was the 22-year-old son of the legendary conceptual artist Sergei Anufriev, whom I had the pleasure of meeting many years ago in a different life. Today, the news came that Timofey had been killed on the front while fighting for Ukraine…

The Story of Gordey Nikitin Russian Reader No. 2763 (the 120th and final dispatch of 2025) conveys what little is known about Russian political prisoner Gordey Nikitin, recently convicted of "high treason" for several antiwar comments on social media and sentenced to 17 years in a maximum security…

Wine, Hot Tubs and Skating Rinks: Three Russian(esque) Stories from California A little provincialism and chicanery go a long way: "If all 270 million Soviets and all 230 million Americans could sit together in a hot tub, the world would be in better shape."

Map References This special holiday blog, featuring several versions of Wire's evergreen classic "Map Ref. 41°N 93°W," is dedicated to my old 1990s Russia comrade L.J., who lives a mere seventy or so miles from the map reference in question and once upon a (better) time invited me to screen the…

Free Daria Egereva! Daria Egereva is a Selkup activist and co-chair of the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC). On December 17, Russian security forces raided her home and the homes of 17 other Russian Indigenous leaders. Egereva was accused of "involvement in a…

“Try Me for Treason”: Londoners Stand in Solidarity with Imprisoned Opponents of Russia’s War in Ukraine If you missed the November London launch of "Voices Against Putin’s War," which featured readings of the court speeches made by four convicted antiwar protesters, you can watch a video of it…

Russia Is Not a Land of Opportunity for Central Asians A 10-year-old boy from a Tajik family was stabbed to death by a neo-Nazi Russian teenager on December 16 at a school near Moscow, but the murder has prompted almost no sympathy or even comment among Russians at home or abroad. Meanwhile, BBC…

Delete All the Messages on Your Phone Before Going to Russia: The Treason Case Against Mikhail Loshchinin The terrifying story of Mikhail Loshchinin, a Belgian-Russian dual national who went to Russia to visit his ailing father but was detained at the border. He now faces charges of "high treason"…

A Documentary Film about Pavel Kushnir Filmmaker Sergey Erzhenkov has memorialized the late pianist, writer and antifascist Pavel Kushnir, who died in a Russian detention center in 2024. Erzhenkov's compelling film "Kushnir" features the pianist's friends and admirers, and it also has English…

The Russian Opposition in Exile The Russian opposition and antiwar movement in exile is in disarray again after Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kara-Murza have a mighty row over which members of this non-elected group are worthy of representing "Russian democratic forces" at the Council of Europe in…

Social Parasites "Social parasitism" was a criminal offense in the USSR from 1961 to 1991. People who were unemployed without a valid reason could be sentenced to corrective labor, exile, or imprisonment. Citizens engaged in shadow private business were often prosecuted on this charge. The poet…

Trans(national) Solidarity Since trans and LBTQ rights are under attack from Astana to Missouri, the defense of these rights is a transnational cause, as witnessed by these dispatches from the front lines by Yara Tychina, Peter Leonard, BBC Russian Service, Erin Reed, and Paisley Currah.

Give Them Want They Want They want it all, but they can't have it. Or can they? Two reflections on (certain) Russians always getting what they want.

The Intensifying Crackdown in Russia As Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine heads to the four-year mark with no signs of ever ending, Russia's crackdown against dissenters has expanded, as exemplified by the cases of Varvara Volkova, Felix Eliseev, Ilya Shakursky, OVD Info, and Yulia Lemeshchenko.

Tales of the NTS In October, a possible educational outing at the local cemetery, where Duke Serge von Leuchtenberg de Beauharnais is buried, unexpectedly sent me down an NTS rabbit hole, a journey that, a month later, has just as serendipitously expanded to new itineraries charted by Mitya…

Peace in Our Time Andy Borowitz, Fred Kaplan, Heather Cox Richardson, and Cathy Young on the Stable Genius's Kremlin-drafted "peace plan" for Russia and Ukraine.

“We Wanted to Show the Whole Range of Anti-War Resistance in Russia” Buy our book.

Reclaiming Whiteness: In Search of the “Good Russians” "Let's have you all over when the war ends": Bristol UP, "Charlemagne," ambicolonial theorists, News from Ukraine Bulletin, the L.A. Times, Sarah Hurst, Jennifer Szalai, and Quentin Peel go in search of the "good Russians."

The Courtroom Rebels Standing Up to Warmonger Putin Simon Pirani: "The powers on both sides of the geopolitical divide are frightened of similar things: the defiance and resilience of the opponents of Putin’s war, and the anger that has brought millions of people on to the streets of north…

Timur Kacharava’s Murder by Neo-Nazis Remembered Twenty Years On The 2005 murder by neo-Nazis of Petersburg musician, philosophy student, antifascist, and Food Not Bombs activist Timur Kacharava was a signal event in post-communist Russia's precipitous slide into full-blown fascism at home and…

Black Friday Black is beautiful if it moves units. Otherwise, it gives white the heebie-jeebies.

Voices Against Putin’s War There can be no better way to mark this website's 18th birthday today than by promoting a new book in whose birth it played a part — Voices Against Putin's War: Protesters' Defiant Speeches in Russian Courts, edited by Simon Pirani and published by Resistance Books…

ICE Goes After Russian Asylum Seekers: The Cases of Alexander Bolokhoev and “Dimitry” ICE has also been targeting Russian asylum seekers, as exemplified by the cases of Buryat activist Alexander Bolokhoev and Peterburg anti-electoral fraud activist "Dimitry." Their stories are told by Julia…

Toxicity "Eating seeds as a pastime activity": this all-star omnibus post features School of Rock, Martin Sheen, John Cusack, Slavoj Žižek, Russian political prisoner Mikhail Krieger, Shirley Manson, Memorial, Pussy Riot, Petersburg anti-war activist Yegor Shramko, Hanna Perekhoda, Donald Trump,…

An omnibus that features profiles of Ukraine's youngest defenders, a snapshot of military aid to the country, an account of how Russia tortures Ukrainian POWs, a fundraising t-shirt that asks the question I've been asking here for the last 18 years, and this week's News from Ukraine Bulletin.

Sunday Reader No. 6: Hell Is Full "Blood is fuel. Hell is full. Devils are here": depaywalling is a civic duty in these desperate times.

MOVE Grim reflections by TV's "The Rookie," The Bulwark's Adrian Carrasquillo, and Dr. Stacey Patton on America's continuing, monstrous war on Black and Brown people, as exemplified by the 1985 MOVE bombing in Philadelphia, the recent South Shore raid in Chicago, and ICE's systematic and…

Suffer the Children The documents and eyewitnesses collected in Russian Reader No. 2738 would lead only a fool conclude that Americans, Russians, and Israelis—as polities—love children. The evidence overwhelmingly points in the other direction.

Choice Is Yours, Don’t Be Late TV series "High Potential," Stacey Patton, and James Sacré on the current scary conjuncture at home and elsewhere, and where it might lead us.

Andrei Khrzhanovsky: Even Tel Aviv Hipsters Can Commit Genocide Andrei Khrzhanovsky is the son of controversial Russian filmmaker Ilya Khrzanovsky. In 2022, Andrei emigrated to Israel, where he plunged into pro-Palestinian activism on the West Bank. Republic published this contentious interview…

El lector ruso: El Pamir se está derritiendo Los glaciares de las montañas Pamir, en Tayikistán, se están derritiendo a un ritmo alarmante, lo que tiene consecuencias para la agricultura y la energía hidroeléctrica en Asia Central.

El lector ruso: Bielorrusia cinco años después BBC News Ruso recuerda las mayores protestas de la historia de Bielorrusia, cinco años después, mientras que la poeta bielorrusa Julia Cimafiejeva destaca la difícil situación de los numerosos presos políticos de su país, y el sello discográfico de…

Something I Learned Today: The Pamirs Are Melting The glaciers in Tajikistan's Pamir Mountains are melting at an alarming rate, with downstream implications for agriculture and hydropower in Central Asia.

Belarus: Five Years Later BBC News Russian remembers the biggest protests in Belarusian history, five years on, while Belarusian poet Julia Cimafiejeva highlights the plight of her country's numerous political prisoners, and the exiled Russian folk music label Antonovka Records commemorates the…

Judging Them by How They Look Led by fascist despots, Russia and the U.S. are brutally cracking down on immigrants even as they desperately need them to do the jobs white Russians and Americans won't do.

Eating Kimchi in Public Carry your U.S. passport with you at all times and don't eat kimchi or speak a language other than English in public.

El lector ruso: 603 628 kilómetros cuadrados (solidaridad con Ucrania) The Kyiv Independent makes an offer you shouldn't refuse as it raises funds for East SOS, and the tireless Ukraine Information Group digests all the news from and about Ukraine and Russia's war against it. auto_awesome…

El lector ruso: Darle la espalda a la propaganda (Valeria Zotova) El ex preso político soviético Alexander Podrabinek habla sobre la lucha de Valeria Zotova, actual presa política rusa y resistente a la guerra, contra las autoridades penitenciarias.

Turning Her Back on Propaganda: Valeria Zotova Former Soviet political prisoner Alexander Podrabinek on current Russian political prisoner and antiwar resister Valeria Zotova's one-woman fight against prison authorities.

Something I Learned Today: Red Power "Something I learned today / Never look straight in the sun's rays."